Cost of subscription not available
USC students and faculty have access to Factiva, a high-level business information resource, but how much USC’s subscription to the service costs isn’t clear.
The program is run by Dow Jones & Co. and allows users to conduct research with a number of tools, including expert analysis as well as a sophisticated aggregation of content, according to Emily Doyle, a business librarian in the Spring Business Library involved in acquiring the subscription.
Factiva was introduced in 1999, when it was built by Reuters and Dow Jones. Since then, the database has become a highly used resource among students and researchers, so when the Richland County Public Library ended its subscription, business faculty asked USC to buy one.
Doyle wouldn’t say how much the subscription costs; Factiva’s licensing agreement doesn’t allow USC to disclose its terms — including the cost. It’s paid for with University Libraries funds allocated for such business information subscriptions.
USC bought the subscription after it conducted a trial period and got input from faculty and Ph.D. candidates “in every business major,” Doyle wrote in an email.
The resource could have impacts beyond the faculty, though, and Doyle thinks it could help out students, since about 80 percent of Fortune Global 500 companies use it. The service is available to students on and off campus.
“Students can gain practical experience using a resource they are likely to encounter in their future employment,” Doyle wrote.
It’s similar, Doyle wrote, to Business Source Complete — a product from EBSCOhost — LexisNexis Academic, which are more commonly used among students. USC’s payments for both of those services is handled by the PASCAL consortium — Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries.
Doyle also emphasized that it had benefits beyond the business school.
“Factiva is a valuable research tool and supports the curriculum for many additional areas, including political science, media studies, technology, social sciences, journalism and more,” she wrote.
Factiva also gathers more than 35,000 information sources from 200 countries in 28 languages, according to Doyle, which she said would be especially helpful for students in the international business program.