Knowledge Base

The Retail Planning Knowledge Base has been set up at the instigation of the National Retail Planning Forum. It is intended to offer an accessible bibliographic resource for planners and academics interested in research on retail planning. It has been compiled and is maintained by Anne Findlay and Leigh Sparks of the Institute for Retail Studies in the University of Stirling.

The Retail Planning Knowledge Base comprises:

• The Planner’s Bookshelf: An excutive summary listing the ‘must read’ texts and key themes in recent publications.
• Comprehensive Knowledge Base: This includes all material from 1998 to 2011 and is intended to be searched electronically.
• Annual Update: This includes relevant material published throughout 2014. It may be downloaded and users may prefer to use it in printed form. Previous updates covering material from 2013 (with separate commentary), 2012 and 2011 are also available
• Briefing Notes: The Briefing Notes comprise a short listing of abstracted references, a list of useful web sites, a list of researchers to contact and a key findings section. The key findings section provides a context for the references giving some insights into the papers which have contributed to different parts of a specific debate and which are based on original research.

Users who are interested in more detailed aspects of the database compilation are referred to the background document Introduction to the Bibliography on Retail Planning.

Search Tips

All files are Adobe Acrobat files. These should be downloaded. The text can then be searched by clicking on ‘Edit’ on the Adobe Acrobat toolbar followed by ‘Search’ on the pop-up menu. Terms of interest can then be entered and a list of all occasions when the term appears will be shown.