Building Entrepreneurial Competencies in Library Staff: Getting Started

Abstract

Library staff in public and academic libraries face challenges to build library staff competencies to serve a growing population of entrepreneurs. Most public libraries provide workforce development assistance, and of those, 48% provide entrepreneurial services to these communities (American Library Association, n.d.). What can we learn from those libraries in order to build our capacity to grow entrepreneurs? When library staff teach individuals about new technologies in our makerspaces, these community members invent new tools, or objects. How do we extend their expertise? Library staff can create pipelines to fabrication re-sources, patent centers, and small business resources in order to assist our communities to grow and start their own businesses. Meeting these growing needs, finding and providing information services in this vein is a part of the traditional library model. How can libraries best serve entrepreneurial-minded individ-uals? How can libraries boost their capacity to meet this need? What kinds of training do we need to ad-dress this issue?