A one day state-wide professional development seminar was held on January 30, 2008 at Alliance Library System.
Sponsors: Western Illinois University Libraries, Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, Alliance Library System, Western Illinois Entrepreneurship Center
The one day economic conference focused on explaining the roles of libraries in economic development and describing the information needs of small business owners. Christine Hamilton-Pennell taught participants the basics of developing a local economy including recruiting jobs to a community, understanding the needs of and developing an entrepreneurship culture, and the concept of economic gardening. The real meat of the day helped libraries identify ways to connect to local community and economic development efforts by identifying common concerns and looking at case studies of libraries around the country who are successful with the process. The second half of the program looked at Business 101 by identifying types of small businesses, the stages of small business development and the related information needs from identifying a niche to fill, to developing business and marketing plans, and managing the business day-to-day, and ending with helping a business grow and change. When libraries do research for businesses, they need to evaluate and narrow the information given to just what the business is looking for. An executive summary of the information evaluated is much more helpful than a data dump of too much information.
