Nicolette Warisse Sosulski is a great librarian and a great friend as well. I asked her if it was OK for me to put something about her upcoming free webinar “Libraries and Local Businesses: Best practices for supporting your entrepreneurs.” Here is what she had to say:
I am really looking forward to the webinar I am doing for SAGE publishing this Thursday—after 11 years in biz librarianship, I still meet people nervous about business reference—and for good reason. Business patrons are directed, motivated, assertive, and know what they want to find, whether it may exist or not. They are rather like genealogists. Whether it is a product usage statistic or a 17th century ship manifest, their searches tend to be narrow, focused, and—at least to them—high stakes.
In my webinar I concentrate on the tasks of reaching out and demonstrating what libraries and librarians can do for entrepreneur patrons (some of them think we are no use, and it is our task to show them that the contrary is true), as well as clarifying and articulating the respective roles of the librarian and the entrepreneur patron (some think we are their onstaff 24/7 personal–as in just theirs–info consultant for free. Unfortunately not! ), so that we can transform them from skeptics past unrealistic customers to enthusiastic users.
Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, MLIS
Not every library is going to focus on business users, but for those who do, this should be great information. Nicolette is always looking to better serve library members, and in helping us all do so as well.
The webinar is Thursday, March 31, 2016
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Pacific | 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Mountain | 1:00 -2:00 p.m. Central | 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Eastern