Library Hack: Resources for Local Businesses
Posted on October 28, 2014 at 6:00 am
By Brian Vander Veen
Earlier this year, the Spokane Business Library went live at StartUp Spokane. A collaboration of the Spokane County Library District and the Spokane Public Library, the Spokane Business Library consolidated the two library systems’ digital business resources into a single one-stop portal.
Up till now, however, to use the resources on StartUp Spokane, you first had to physically visit your nearest county (for Spokane county residents) or city library (for residents of incorporated Spokane) to sign up for a card. But now, SCLD has introduced a special library card for business owners to streamline the process of accessing StartUp Spokane resources.
In upcoming months, our librarians will take these cards out to the community—to chamber meetings, trade shows, and other business-related events—and make them available to local businesses and other organizations interested in using our digital library (you can also pick one up at any county library). The cards can be used immediately to access our online business resources from your home or office computer, no additional registration or inconvenience required.
There are some limitations: if you want to borrow physical items from SCLD, you’ll still have to visit one of our ten locations and register the card. And a select few of our digital resources, like our downloadable eBooks through Overdrive, are still limited to verified county residents. But, with our new library card for businesses, you’ll be able to use any of the StartUp Spokane resources described below, instantly, without leaving your office.
Getting Trained for 21st Century Business: Gale Courses
The web has been a huge boon for those seeking to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to run a successful enterprise, but all that unstructured information can be frustrating and time consuming to process. A traditional course, on the other hand, can provide the necessary structure if, say, you need to brush up on your computer skills or learn the basics of bookkeeping, but formal courses can also be expensive or prohibitively inconvenient. Fortunately, StartUp Spokane provides a couple of alternatives.
Gale Courses is our most diverse resource for online learning. Its courses cover everything from human anatomy to web design to creative writing, but Gale also has outstanding offerings for the small business owner, with course titles such as “Creating a Successful Business Plan,” “Small Business Marketing on a Shoestring,” “Introduction to QuickBooks 2014,” and “Using Social Media in Business.” All the courses are six weeks long, require only about two to four hours a week, and offer opportunities for instructor feedback and online class discussion. New sessions start every month, so you never have to wait long to begin.
Understanding Your Market: Data Axle Reference Solutions
Business owners today have never had more information available at their fingertips for making data-driven decisions for business planning and marketing, but making practical use of all that data remains a challenge. Sure, it would be nice to have one’s own private market research analyst, but small business owners are more likely to have to take a DIY approach. In our digital library, we have Data Axle Reference Solutions to help entrepreneurs and small businesses do exactly that.
Data Axle Reference Solutions is ostensibly a huge collection of data, a sort of digital white pages with information on millions of U.S. businesses and residents. But beyond just the raw data, this resource also gives you advanced tools to filter and process that data in order to develop lead lists, analyze local market segments, or get a detailed look at your competition.
This tool is powerful but a little complex, and mining its true value does come with something of a learning curve. Our librarians, however, are always happy to help: If you think your business might benefit from a little data about your market or your competition, you’re welcome to book a librarian to walk you through the details.
Keeping Current with Your Industry: Business Source Complete and ProQuest
Last year, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Year Ahead forecast declared 2014 “The Year of the Paywall,” following the recent trend of newspapers and other periodicals beginning to limit at least some of their content only to paid subscribers. Whether they restrict you to a handful of articles before prompting you for a log-in or limit your access only to the current issue, paywalls can be frustrating, especially if you’re trying to conduct in-depth research.
On StartUp Spokane, however, we have two resources — Proquest and Business Source Complete — that provide access to industry news and information not otherwise available for free on the web. On Proquest, SCLD business card users can access articles from a number of subscription periodicals, such as The Wall Street Journal or Spokane’s Journal of Business, as well as an extensive collection of trade journals for specific industries.
Likewise, Business Source Complete provides online full-text access to articles from popular business publications like Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, and Harvard Business Review, as well as industry profiles, company SWOT analyses, market research reports and more. And both databases provide advanced options for searching their content, while avoiding the dubious content that can often clutter an equivalent Google search.
If any of that sounds useful to you and you don’t yet have a library card, you are of course welcome to stop by any SCLD library and pick one up, but also keep an eye out for our SCLD librarians at your next chamber meeting and ask us about the new SCLD library card for local businesses. Also, if you have questions or need help with any of these resources, feel free to contact us or make an appointment if you want more in-depth help.
Tags: business, library hacks, spokane
