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MGMT 365: Social Entrepreneurship

Company Information: The Rivet

Additional Resources

Check out the Nonprofit Research and Company Information guides to explore potential additional sources of information about Discovery Space of Central Pennsylvania - The Rivet's parent organization - and similar companies and organizations.

Industry: Makerspaces

Researching makerspaces as an industry may be more challenging than industry research you may have done in the past. It will rely more on performing article searches than looking at industry reports like those found in IBISWorld and other University Libraries databases.

In addition, many makerspaces are found in K-12 and higher education settings. You may find that you have to do additional digging to find information on issues faced specifically by community-based makerspaces like The Rivet.

If you have any questions while conducting your research, please email me or book an appointment to meet with me via Zoom or in my office in Paterno Library.

National Trade and Advocacy Organizations

Search for Articles

 

Search Tips

Using the following search tips in many of the article databases PSU Libraries provide access to will help you find relevant articles more quickly.

Combining search terms:

  • Use quotation marks (" ") to search for words in a phrase together such as "fab lab"
  • Use the connector AND to find articles that contain both search terms. Ex: makerspace AND "tool rental" will return only articles that contain both of those terms
  • Use the connector OR to find articles that contain either search term. Ex: makerspace OR "fab lab" will return articles that contain at least one of those terms
  • Use parentheses ( ) to create more complex searches. The database will look for articles that fit the criteria within the parentheses first, then apply the rest of the search string.
    • Ex: if you enter tools AND (makerspace OR "fab lab"), the search function will first look for any article that contains at least one of the terms materials or tools, then look for the term makerspace within those results only

Recommended types of sources/publications:

  • In databases like ABI/INFORM and Business Source Premier, there's an option to narrow your results to specified types of publications or sources
  • Recommended source types include:
    • Magazines/periodicals - written for the general public. In business, these will include publications like ForbesFortune, and BusinessWeek
    • Newspapers - written for the general public. Includes publications like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times
    • Trade journals/publications - written for an industry-associated audience. Includes publications like Engineering News-Record (ENR)Architectural Record, and Automotive News
    • Scholarly/academic journals - written for a scholarly audience, usually by academic researchers at universities, government agencies, and other organizations engaged in research

Other tips:

  • Limit your results to articles from the past 3-5 years
  • If you find an article you're interested in, look for the Subject or Keywords section in the article details to find additional terms to use in searches