Searching for Private Company Info

My colleague Jennifer Merchant, Library Assistant for Field Law in the Calgary office gets credit for this tip. It is really more the beginning of a memo of research results, rather than a tip, but I thought you might find it useful. Jennifer was looking for some background information on a private company. Here is the beginning of her result:

You asked for background information on [insert private company name here]. I used the following resources in my search:

• Google (general)
• Google News
• Canadian Business and Current Affairs Complete (business/news database)
• Canadian Newsstand (news database)
• Canadian Periodicals (news database)
• Canadian Reference Centre (news database)

Using the sources above with a search for a private company name as a phrase yields plenty of results. This is true even when the company itself has no website.