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Another NCLive Business database is EDIS: Economic Development Information System. To locate this useful database for NC business data, click on the BrowseResources Tab on the NCLive Homepage.Note you could do an EZ Keyword search at the homepage if you prefer and search several databases simultaneously (metasearch).

Next select to enter either by the Subject/Type (Business) or the Alphabetic List option.

The Homepage for EDIS follows. Note the several types of information available, including: county and regional profiles, research papers, comparisons, and maps. See also the link to the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

Clicking on the County Profiles link returns the next page. One can point to a county or use the pull down the menu to highlightthe county of interest and click the View Button.

Requesting information about Catawba Countyretrieves the page below.

Note the Quarter options, the Data Dictionary and the Charlotte RegionalPartnership links, as well as the two types of files (PDF and XLS). Especially notice that the XLS file contains data for all 100 counties. Selecting the PDF file for the 1 st Quarter of 2004 brings up the following data. A portion of page 1 is shown to illustrate the type of data available in the profile. Also available, but not visible, is information on Announced Jobs and Investments, Announced Closings and Layoffs, Employment and Wages by Sector for the County and the whole State. Page 2 of the profile has a Trends Profile Map.

The next view is a portion of the Trends Profile Map of CATAWBA County from page 2.

Selecting the State Comparison option from the EDIS Homepage returns the following screen allowing you to select a state to compare with North Carolina. Simply check the type of statistics you wish to compare. Then either highlight a state and view, OR click on the target state on the map.

The information below is the result of requesting statistics (using the check boxes) on the Population, Infrastructure, and Business Climate for the State of South Carolina.

Let’s take a look at an example of a research paper. Clicking on the Research Papers option found on the EDIS Homepage returns this screen. At the time when this tutorial was created, there was one article on the crisis facing the NC furniture industries.

Below is the Table of Contents for the 41 page paper written by Ucheoma Nwagbara, Policy Analyst, North Carolina Department of Commerce Policy, Research, and Strategic Planning Division; Urs Buehlmann, Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist, North Carolina State University, Department of Wood and Paper Science, Wood Products Extension; and Al Schuler, Research Economist, USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station. It is clear that this is a scholarly research paper on the topic.

Now let’s sample the CommerceMaps option in EDIS. Clicking on the CommerceMaps link takes us to the page that follows. It identifies 6 types of maps.

This is the map for Workforce: Computer Controlled Machine Tool Operators.

You should now be able to navigate through the Industry Profiles and NC RegionalInformationEDIS options on your own.