First, Columbus Business Journal, The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus Monthly and Ohio Magazine. The SIC, a code assigned by the government to aid in the identification and classification of industries, is used by most government agencies to gather statistics on similar industries. But the SIC system has been adopted by man non-government resources as a convenient indexing method. To find the SIC code of the industry you are researching, ask to use the Standard Industrial Classification Manual. This Technique si particularly useful to the job hunter who wishes to match his skills to a particular industry, or a business person who wants to identify prospective clients and competitors.
Many researchers use industry ratios to better understand the health of a business.
The library maintains a historical collection of the major ratio services. Again, magazine and newspapers articles are good source for industry data. Indexed by author, subject and title. Discovery Place can provide you with reference numbers for books dealing with the history, process and future of the industry you are researching. Predicasts Basebook and Predicasts Forecasts provide raw statistics for a wide range of products.