The Entrepreneurial Librarian - by Mary Krautter & Mary Beth Lock & Mary G Scanlon (Paperback)

About the Book

The old image of an entrepreneur as a scrappy, independent risk-taker has been replaced by the reality of individuals incorporating innovative ideas in more traditional settings. This collection of essays illustrates how librarians are infusing entrepreneurial principles in a variety of arenas, including public, private, academic, and special libraries. It chronicles how entrepreneurial librarians are flourishing in the digital age, advocating social change, responding to patron demands, designing new services, and developing exciting fundraising programs. Applying new business models to traditional services, they eagerly embrace entrepreneurship in response to patrons' demands, funding declines, changing resource formats, and other challenges. By documenting the current state of entrepreneurship in libraries, this volume upends the public image of librarians as ill-suited to risky or creative ventures and places them instead on the cutting edge of innovations in the field.

Book Synopsis

The old image of an entrepreneur as a scrappy, independent risk-taker has been replaced by the reality of individuals incorporating innovative ideas in more traditional settings. This collection of essays illustrates how librarians are infusing entrepreneurial principles in a variety of arenas, including public, private, academic, and special libraries. It chronicles how entrepreneurial librarians are flourishing in the digital age, advocating social change, responding to patron demands, designing new services, and developing exciting fundraising programs. Applying new business models to traditional services, they eagerly embrace entrepreneurship in response to patrons' demands, funding declines, changing resource formats, and other challenges. By documenting the current state of entrepreneurship in libraries, this volume upends the public image of librarians as ill-suited to risky or creative ventures and places them instead on the cutting edge of innovations in the field.

Review Quotes

"thought-provoking...valuable"-Journal of Librarianship and Information Science; "detail foundational principles of ethics and management that should be considered and the different approaches of these librarians"-Reference & Research Book News.

About the Author

Mary Krautter is head of Reference and Instructional Services at Jackson Library at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Greensboro, North Carolina. Mary Beth Lock is the Director of Access Services at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Mary G. Scanlon is a retired librarian from Wake Forest University. She lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.