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The American library community is discovering small businesses and economic development. Individual librarians and libraries, of course, have provided effective information services to the business community for many years. Library service to businesses influenced John Cotton Dana to found the Special Libraries Association. Large urban library systems established “mercantile” libraries during the early years of their development. Within the past decade, however, the library community's service to the business and economic development sector has increased significantly. The reasons for this surge in service are simple. Service has been increased because of accountability, competition, opportunity, and evolution. It will be helpful to discuss each of these areas before presenting ten steps state library agencies can take to foster small business development and economic development because factors in each area need to be considered in order to establish a conceptual background for the recommendations.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not a dedicated business center within a public library acts as a key success factor in a public library’s services to the community entrepreneur.

A questionnaire survey was sent to 88 public libraries with dedicated business centers, and posted to BRASS-L and BUSLIB-L, for input from public libraries without business centers. Interviews with three survey respondents and one local city official followed.

Fifty-seven per cent of all respondents felt that a dedicated business center is very essential or essential to the services provided to the entrepreneurial community. The services most often offered were workshops/seminars/classes, counseling sessions by collaborative agencies and one-on-one research sessions with librarians. The majority of responding libraries collaborated with a community business agency (80 per cent). Fifty-one per cent spend between 6 and 20 hours/month on the collaboration.

Since 2007, many of the dedicated business centers in public libraries have closed or been consolidated with other sections and services of a public library. This should be further studied. Further research on librarian expertise in market and industry research is recommended.

This study updates the business services associated with public libraries business services since the push in the late 1990s for public libraries to be more active in community economic development.

Describes economic benefits of Ontario public libraries. These benefits include services and information for businesses, lifelong learners and job seekers. Ontario public libraries create work including short‐term construction work and longer‐term information infrastructure work. Provides job multiplier models for library building capital and information infrastructure capital with examples. Ontario public libraries have a direct and indirect impact on the Ontario economy, measured in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). Suggests a framework to help public libraries promote their economic impact in a time of economic restraint and funding cutbacks. This framework includes an analysis of library jobs, direct and indirect library impact on the GDP, a promotion of public electronic access to information, generation of economic‐oriented patron anecdotes, economic impact surveys and development of an entrepreneurial spirit in public libraries.

In this article, I have traced the literature of marketing libraries and information services from 1970 to the present. This period immediately follows Kotler and Levy's introductory article in the Journal of Marketing (January 1969) which first suggested the idea of marketing nonprofit organizations. The use of the marketing concept for libraries and information services was an idea which did not appear until after that date. However, many articles on specific aspects of marketing, such as publicity and public relations, were published prior to 1970. These areas have been touched upon only briefly to show their connection with marketing.

Purpose – This paper proposes enhancing libraries to act as knowledge management centers for small businesses, providing both knowledge management (KM) and competitive intelligence (CI) services. Design/methodology/approach – The requirements for a Library Knowledge Management Center (LKMC) are presented and briefly examined. KM, CI, ontologies, and the Semantic Web are all considered, and the steps needed to realize a LKMC are presented. Findings – An approach to developing a LKMC is provided, as is a rationale for the proposal. Future research issues for realization of this proposal are addressed. Research limitations/implications – This paper presents a conceptual overview of a project that is still in its early stages, and as such its practicality is difficult to evaluate. Practical implications – This proposal, if followed up with future research, will prove beneficial to both small business and to libraries. Small businesses are not always able to gather sufficient internal and external knowledge to assist in strategic planning and positioning, and thus are unable to compete with larger rivals whose resources allow them to develop sophisticated KM and CI systems. LKMCs hold promise to level the playing field. Libraries benefit because this reaffirms their relevance in a digital age in which so much information is freely available to patrons. Originality/value – This paper proposes a new service for libraries, one that will assist small businesses in competing more effectively with larger competitors.

Citizens of Eastern European countries need to acquire knowledge on how to start and operate business if their move to t a free‐market economy is to be successful. The acquisition of such knowledge will come from putting at the disposal of entrepreneurs a core business library and assistance on how to utilize that library properly. Public libraries are already in place. Among other things, the role of the library is to serve the information and self‐improvement needs of the public Those already working cannot be expected to take time to go to universities for formal business school programmes. However, they should be able to seek out useful business information at public libraries as part of their education about business techniques. An examination of data from the National Hungarian Public Library in Budapest indicatcs that there is a gap in the business collection concerning information on how to start and run a business. Business books and periodicals should be added to all Eastern European libraries; initially the collection should be more practical than theoretical Universities should work with the public libraries to provide basic instruction in business areas. The libraries can serve as satellite instructional facilities where seminars and workshops and ongoing reference assistance can be provided.

The development of the Hertfordshire business databank of companies is described with particular attention to the user‐friendly software package for editing and searching. The parallel publication of the databank in print and as a Prestel gateway service is also covered.

This study seeks to explore and report international business students’ perceptions and expectations of electronic library services at the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign. A total of 143 international business students on campus volunteered to fill out a survey. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as inferential statistics such as t‐tests and correlation. A significant portion of international business students has no prior experience with electronic library services in their home countries. Moreover, about a half of international business students go to libraries other than the Business and Economics Library, partly because they provide better environment for study. Although electronic resources are available without the constraint of location, providing reference services for those who do not use the Business and Economics Library becomes a challenge. Virtual reference is an excellent tool, but most international business students do not see it as an important library service. Based on the results, implications for information literacy and virtual reference service are discussed.