A library student "goes" to business school

This week I got the amazing opportunity to speak to students with interest in business and entrepreneurship. It was the launch of a new entrepreneurship club, Micro-Tyco at Western Univeristy (formerly University of Western Ontario). In this post, I want to describe in brief my experience and make some points that I think are relevant for my fellow library students and administrators of library schools.

The Ivey business school building, the setting of the event was very impressive. There were lots of rooms for small group collaboration, great space and decor, with lots of natural light. It did indeed seem like a great place for learning and a place that library school student would be envious of. It was within this pleasant setting that I saw the pleasantness also reflected in the faces and interactions of Ivey students.

After finding my way to the room of the event, I had a pleasant evening of learning more about the club initiative from the executive presenters, sharing my limited "knowledge" of entrepreneurship with other young entrepreneurs and interacting with those present. The atmosphere felt very comfortable and supportive. I felt comfortable as if I was among kindred spirits. Both among the young entrepreneurs there and the business school students there. Most importantly, I received positive feedback about ideas I shared there relating to entrepreneurship that made me feel really appreciated.

Through one on one interaction, I also found that the way that the Ivey students spoke about their teachers and their classes was very positive. They seemed very positive about their learning experiences at Ivey, which made me in turn wish I could experience being a student there.

That said, I want to turn my reflection to what I think about these issues as it relates to library schools.

1. Library schools need to ensure that students are pleased with the quality of their teaching, the building and facilities and have many positive things to say about their learning experiences. As one of my colleagues said to me this month, the best marketing for a department comes from its students. The more students feel positive about their experiences at library school, the more they will share and spread such good reports to others outside. This in turn will automatically pay off in recruiting new students to library schools.

2. By hanging out at Ivey Business school with these young entrepreneurs and business students, I felt that I had an opportunity to make them appreciate my skills and area of expertise in information. This got me thinking that the more opportunities I could get like this, could pay off in the future, as these persons may be my next network contacts to lead to future contracts for my services. My take home point from this thought is that library students need to seek opportunities to network more with business school students. In a previous blog post, I have raised the point that:

LIS schools need to help students learn the same networking skills that business students learn and practice, which can help them get jobs in any field or industry. Hence, we can not afford to isolate our students to talking solely with library professionals, but must also push our students to share what they are learning in library school with persons in other sectors, and get feedback about how what they are learning may be transferrable to jobs outside of traditional librarian jobs.

Well, these are my thoughts for now. 

What my lived experience teach about how academic libraries can support post-secondary student entrepreneurs?

I have held very negative views about business for much of my youth, even at one time gravitating towards Marxism. However, my university years helped to bring me in touch with realities. After almost completing my Bachelors in Political Science, I started to be more conscious of the fact that I needed to be job ready. Further, I was not willing to walk into politics, which I had a new distaste for after encountering university student politics. It was only then within my university years, that I awakened to the possibility of being my own boss and starting my own company.

For throughout my education, I could not recalled being encouraged by teachers to pursue entrepreneurship. Career guidance was biased towards becoming professionals or getting jobs. I find that even children books published are biased towards getting children to think about traditional careers. This for me is why our librarians need to step into the gap and demand that our children publishers not only produce books for children on traditional careers, but also books on the life of entrepreneurs and consultants.

All this said, it is only within years of my transition from undergraduate to my Masters that I began to consider and even study entrepreneurship for myself. This led to my Master thesis and eventually my first book (Scale, 2012). Yet, the greater good that came out of this experience is that I realised by doing my Masters in Library and Information Science, how libraries could have played a more important role in shaping young persons into realizing the option of entrepreneurship as an alternative to career seeking and job search.

Well, it is with this new understanding, that I have resumed studies as a PhD student. And as such, I now attempt to operate as a potential student entrepreneur, interrogating the academic library system to see how it could support me in this endeavour. As such, I just want to share briefly some of my own findings/observations (which may or may not be peculiar to the university system that I am within:

1. Most of the resources for entrepreneurship and career development are located within the business library.

This is problematic, as the business libraries in both universities that I study at are usually separated from the general library collection that social science, science and even humanity students access. Hence, unless they actively browse the library catalogue for such resources, there is little way of serendipitously discovering these resources.

2. Only business students get adequate training in using and accessing business databases.

This is problematic because, only business students will have the competence of knowing when to check a business database to find information, the strength and weakness of each and knowledge of which database to search for particular information. 

To some extent, select library students are introduced to these databases (especially if they are undertaking a business resource course). Nonetheless, all the rest of university students are excluded from this insider knowledge that could help inform their business planning and research.

Conclusion:  The way that the business library resources are separated from other disciplines, excludes students from other disciplines that do not take business courses from exposure to business resources and even the knowledge in how to use these resources to assist them in researching and planning businesses. 

Alternately, there are business incubators on campus. However, in my experience, business incubators and librarians operate separately, and not in partnership.

Recommendations:

1. Academic librarians must do something to reduce this unequal access and exposure to business resources. We cannot just leave all business resources within the business faculty, and not permit other students from other disciplines to not gain exposure to these resources.
2. Academic librarians must also approach business incubators with a partnership to train student entrepreneurs in business resources and the use of the library resources to support their business research.

When we have done this, we as librarians would ensure equal opportunities for all post-secondary students to not just seek jobs, but also to become entrepreneurs.

Reference: 

Scale, M. (2011). Written information and planning in Jamaican small businesses: A usability approach. LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing
https://www.lap-publishing.com/catalog/details/store/gb/book/978-3-8433-5946-7/written-information-and-planning-in-jamaican-small-businesses
or

http://books.google.ca/books/about/Written_Information_and_Planning_in_Jama.html?id=y25IYgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Young Adult-Owned Business Information Resources for Academic Librariesss

My vision is to see academic libraries provide support for student entrepreneurs to start new businesses. I strongly believe that academic libraries have the existing resources to do so.

Today I went to the Business Library at the Ivey School of Business building and in its reference collection used several resources of value to the small business owner or entrepreneur. There where directories about who buys what; sample business plans, business plan templates, industry profiles and other resources.

I am contemplating collecting a list of resources that academic librarians can use to provide information to students who want to start small businesses.

However, I may first want to make the case for young business owners:

Today, 'more young persons have abandoned traditional corporate career paths in favor of increased autonomy and financial rewards that are possible through entrepreneurship.' Hillstrom, updated by Magee ('Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (YEO)' Encyclopedia of small business / Arsen J. Darnay, Monique D. Magee, editors.3rd ed. Detroit : Thomson Gale, c2007.)

This is evident from a number of articles:

• Muhammad, Tariq K. 'From Buppie to Biz-Wiz: Forget Corporate America - Generation X is Choosing the Entrepreneurial Path to Success." Black Enterprise. January 1997.
• "Entrepreneurial Enthusiasm" Black Enterprise. February 2004 vol 34 #7- p. 32
• Smith. D. (2004, Nov). Students of enterprise. Entrepreneur vol 32 # 11 p. 108 Entrepreneur.com  http://app02.secondact.com/article/73166-3
• "Turn classmates into customers" Black Enterprise vol 33 # 3 October 2002, p. S2.

Some resources that I saw as very useful include:

• For Reference book - Small business sourcebook.(2008). Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co.,
• For Periodicals - the Black Enterprise and Entrepreneur magazines.
• For Book - Young Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating What Matters Most: Building Attitudes, Behaviors and an Action Plan for Success in Your Own Business. - Mary S. Moore (1994). Courage Press

However, as my problem is practically oriented, I have the great challenge of converting this into an academic research proposal.