LibGuides: FAME: About

Very Short Introductions are a great way to find out about a new subject, consider study options, or revise a topic. The University of Birmingham now offers full access online to all 579 titles covering a broad range of subjects across many disciplines.

If you are looking for a specific title, you can search for it on Findit@Bham as you would any other book eg African Politics: Very Short Introduction
If you want to explore the whole collection, or a subject area, you can enter the search 'Very Short Introductions' on Findit@Bham

Very Short Introductions (Oxford University Press)
Launched by Oxford University Press in 1995, Very Short Introductions offer concise introductions to a diverse range of subject areas from Climate to Consciousness, Game Theory to Ancient Warfare, Privacy to Islamic History, Economics to Literary Theory.

Using the Very Short Introductions website you can:

Browse by subject area to find books and chapters
Search across the whole range of titles to find books and chapters
Set up an free personalized account so that you can save a list of your favourite books and chapters and notes on your reading

Useful Links

What is FAME?

Financial Analysis Made Easy (FAME) is a database published by Bureau van Dijk (BvD) that contains information on over 2 million active companies in the United Kingdom and Ireland as well as historical information on 6 million companies that are no longer active and details of 1.3 million companies that are active but yet to file accounts or are not required to file accounts. The resource contains up to 10 years worth of information on each company. The data is largely sourced by Jordans via Companies House (UK) and the Companies Registration Office (Ireland).

FAME helps you to:

Assess a company’s financial strength
Find companies that match your profiles including size, industry and location - you can combine hundreds of criteria
Find all companies in the same corporate “family” and look at complex organisational structures in clear diagrams. This unique data set includes international and domestic ownership information
Compile a detailed picture of a company that includes background information, financial history plus relevant news
Analyse a company in relation to its peers
Show your results graphically to help you interpret and display your research
Monitor companies and peer groups you’re interested in using FAME's flexible alerts
Export your results for analysis or business development projects
Compare groups of companies against each other

You can search the FAME database on a single criterion, for example a company name, or on a combination of criteria. It allows you to compare companies to their peer groups and analyse the data using the financial analysis software that is included. Data can be easily downloaded into MS Excel and you can also choose to create graphs and charts for download.