Library Services to Small Business (online learning course)

Instructor: Mark S. Hall

Library Services to Small Business

(An Infopeople Online Learning Course)

January 31, 2006 - February 27, 2006

Small business entrepreneurs represent a large potential source of new users for your library's services, if you know what they're looking for and how to reach them. According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses in the U.S....

...represent 99.7% of all employers.
...employ 50.1% of the private work force.
...represent 97% of all U.S. exporters.
...provide approximately 75% of the net new jobs added to the economy.
...hire a larger proportion of younger, older, and part-time workers.

To serve this clientele effectively, you need to build - and familiarize yourself with - a print and virtual collection of best tools for small business. You need to understand the broad categories of questions small business people ask. And you need to target your outreach for this audience.

This course will increase your ability to serve small business by introducing you to the best reference tools and proven outreach strategies.

This four-week online learning course will provide a guided tour through the best resources for helping entrepreneurs at each stage of their business development. Through individual exercises you will gain direct experience in using these resources to answer real-world questions. You will also complete an action plan for upgrading your library's small business collections, services, and outreach. The instructor will provide sample plans, templates, cheat sheets and a webliography, as well as practical, useful tips that can be applied immediately.

During the course, you will be doing exercises and taking quizzes. You will also participate in online discussion forums as part of the online learning process.

Preliminary Course Outline: Using your web browser and your Internet connection, you will log in to the Infopeople online learning site and complete the following learning modules:

• Module One: Overview, and Business Startups
  • What do entrepreneurs ask, and what tools can libraries offer them?
  • Helping users find and evaluate business startup ideas and opportunities
  • Checklists for business startups
• Module Two: Business Plans and Finance
  • Why write a business plan?
  • Resources to help research and write a business plan
  • How to get financing to start or grow a business
• Module Three: Marketing, Sales, and Customer Retention
  • What does marketing encompass?
  • Resources to help users research, design, and price a product or service
  • Resources for promotion, sales, and generating repeat business.
• Module Four: Managing and More
  • Legal, personnel, accounting, tax, and technology resources
  • Doing business with the government
  • Women and minority business
  • Disaster recovery
  • Business ethics and social responsibility
  • Libraries serving small business: success stories

(Optional) Pre-workshop assignment: Students will be asked to complete a survey before the workshop, outlining their library's current small business resources, services, and outreach.

Online Learning Details: This four-week course will be taught online using the web. When you register, you will receive a registration confirmation, which will include the URL to get to the course, as well as a username and password.

Every student proceeds through the online learning modules at his or her own pace. However, students should expect to commit to spending a minimum of 2 to 2½ hours per week on this course in order to be successful. You can work on each module at your own pace, at any hour of the day or night. However, you will be expected to log in to the course each week to do that week's assignment. We ask that you log in sometime during the first week of the course to begin the course work.

Your instructor will be available for limited consultation support for two weeks after the official end date of a course, and the course material will stay up for an additional two weeks after that, to give those who have fallen behind time to work independently on the course. However, you will be expected to accomplish the majority of the course in synchronization with your peers during the first four weeks.

Who Should Take This Course: Anyone from the library community with an interest in improving connections with small business owners and the entrepreneurial community.

Prerequisites: This course is taught over the web. You must:

• Have an Internet connection and Internet Explorer 5 or higher (some of the quiz functions do not work properly in Netscape).
• Be able to save Microsoft Word .docs or Adobe .pdf files to your computer and print them out. (For .doc files, a free Word Viewer is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en. Search for "Word Viewer." For .pdf files, a free Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html).
• Be comfortable navigating on the web and navigating back and forward on a website that uses frames.

If you are not comfortable with any of the above, please consider taking this course with a colleague who does meet these requirements.

Course Start: This 4-week-long online learning course starts on Tuesday January 31, 2006.

This class started January 31, 2006 If you are interested in signing up there are a few openings left. Please contact Linda Rodenspiel at assist@infopeople.org