Welcome to the Chandler Public Library and ReferenceUSA. ReferenceUSA is a searchable database of businesses and residential listings.

Transcription

1 Welcome to the Chandler Public Library and ReferenceUSA. ReferenceUSA is a searchable database of businesses and residential listings. This tutorial will teach you to use the database. Page down to move forward.

2 To access ReferenceUSA, start at chandlerlibrary.org hover your mouse over RESEARCH, and choose Databases A-Z.

3 These are all the databases that the library subscribes to in an alphabetic list. Click to choose ReferenceUSA.

4 You can choose the Business or the Residential database by clicking Search. We ll start with a business search.

5 The default is a Quick Search. You can look up a company by business name or by executive (president, CEO, or owner), and limit to city and/or state if desired. From this screen you can also search by phone number.

6 ReferenceUSA is a comprehensive database, so it will find all the business locations that match your search terms

7 even if there are thousands of matches.

8 Let s choose one of these locations to view the full listing. Click the company name.

9 All the information that the database has will be displayed. Scroll down or use the links on the left to view additional information such as

10 Demographics (estimated revenue and number of employees), Stock data (if a publicly traded company), Reports filed (if required)

11 Lines of business, Financial information, Estimated business expenditures

12 Nearby businesses (by address), Competitors (nearby businesses with the same industry codes), And more. Data is compiled from questionnaires sent to the company and not every company will have data for every field.

13 From the top of the screen, you can go back to your results list or do a new search. Let s do a new search to find just Petsmart locations in Chandler.

14 Type in the city and use the drop-down menu to choose your state.

15 Here are the locations that match the new search criteria. For any company that s part of a multi-location corporation, you will see this Corporate Tree icon. If any of your results are branches, you will also see upward-pointing arrows. Parent companies will have downward-pointing arrows. Click the tree icon to see the entire corporate tree (parent, subsidiaries, branches). Click the arrow to go straight to the parent company.

16 Corporate tree. Parent company display. Click the down arrow to view all branches.

17 ReferenceUSA offers many search options, which you can choose on the Custom Search tab.

18 For this example, let s search for small furniture companies in the Phoenix metro area. From the Business Type menu, choose Keyword.

19 When you click the checkbox, a search screen will display. Enter your business keywords and click Lookup.

20 Scroll down in the Results list to find the desired line(s) of business. When you click one, it will appear in the Selected list. You can click to choose as many as you wish. (You do not need to hold the CTRL key to make multiple choices.)

21 Next we ll check Metro Area from the Geography menu. The search form is added below.

22 Use the drop-down menu to choose your state, then choose the Metro Area(s) from the list on the left. Selections will appear in the box on the right. You ll notice the Record Count on the right side of the screen. These are business that match the criteria you ve chosen. As you add search criteria the number will decrease. (Click Update Count if necessary.)

23 Next we ll choose Number of Employees from the Business Size menu, and click all the choices necessary to get businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

24 Updating the count tells us that there are 456 businesses that match all these criteria. Click View Results to see their listings.

25 Click any business name to view the complete information. A few of these companies have corporate structures, which you can view by clicking the icons and/or arrows.

26 ReferenceUSA also allows you to search residential listings.

27 The Residential Quick Search lets you search by name or phone number. Use the drop-down arrow to choose a state. You can search All states simultaneously.

28 Click a name for more information. People who are unlisted will not appear. People who choose not to list their address will appear with only their city/state and phone numbers. ReferenceUSA now does some basic related searches automatically (like William for Bill), but if you don t find a name, try searching for variants.

29 The full listing includes a map (click to generate), residential listings within a range of miles and economic information for the census tract in which the person resides. (This is NOT the person s actual income or home value.)

30 You can print or download your results. First, checkmark the desired listings, or click All to check all the listings on the page. Then, choose Download or Print.

31 To download, choose your file format: Excel and Comma Delimited both create Excel files. Tab Delimited creates a text file. To download or to print, choose your level of detail. Summary gives you just the name, address, and phone number. Detailed and Custom include more data.

32 A sample Excel download shows the selected summary records. Please note that you can only print or download 50 records at a time, 25 if you re accessing ReferenceUSA from home. If you need a larger list, do your search again and choose the next set of records to print/dowload. You may need to start a new browser session.

33 You can use ReferenceUSA on any computer in the library or at home, even when the library is closed! Start at chandlerlibrary.org and choose Databases A-Z from the RESEARCH tab.

34 Choose ReferenceUSA from the alphabetic list.

35 At home, you will see this screen. Type in your library card number (all 14 digits with no spaces) and your 4-digit PIN. ReferenceUSA is a subscription database, not free information on the internet. By entering your library card number, you prove that the library has paid for your access. There is no additional charge to you.

36 Then you can begin your search. Ask a librarian for more tips about using ReferenceUSA. Good luck with your search!