Future of Business Support

Business information and advice: back to the library

I recently produced a report for SINTO on business information provision in Yorkshire. It is a review of the current landscape and a vision of what might be. Now it appears that the whole landscape may change.

According to Real Business, small business minister Mark Prisk (Minister of State for Business and Enterprise) has announced that the Business Link Network is to be closed down. This follows on from the news that the Regional Development Agencies are to be replaced by Local Enterprise Partnerships. This news is not confirmed on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website so it is not clear how reliable this is but it may be a leak to gauge public opinion on the matter.
It appears that Prisk is influenced by a report Small Business and Government produced a couple of years ago by Doug Richard for the then Conservative Shadow Cabinet . Richard claimed that the current system was overly complex, ineffective and undirected. He was particularly scathing about Business Links.

Richard went on to propose:

• business support policy needs to clearly reflect the difference between providing information and expert advice or support.
  
• the whole regional business support apparatus of RDAs and Business Links should be replaced by a single, web-based Business Information Service.
  
• The in-depth information system behind the BIS should be modelled on the successful British Library Business and IP Centre, which is a substantive service provided by an institution with proven competence. Similar centres should be rolled out across the country, delivered by major libraries and leading universities: they are accessible organisations that have the proven competence to deliver expert information services, providing depth behind the web-based service.
  

Prisk has certainly seized on the last of these suggestions. Speaking at the launch of the "Inventing the 21st century" exhibition at the British Library he announced that a memorandum of understanding had been signed between Newcastle City Library, the British Library and NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) to investigate the feasibility of a Business and IP Centre Newcastle as a pilot for rolling out a new business support service.

Richard's ideas for a web-based Business Information Service sound very close to the idea put forward in the JISC Grant Funding invitation 1/10 Access to Resources and Open Innovation (which in turn followed on from the Business Information Resources: Landscape & Feasibility Study (BIR) written by Nigel Spencer of the British Library) for a one-stop-shop portal which would provide access to free and priced information. JISC is currently funding eight projects around the country which are piloting this concept.

Richard's separation between information and expert advice is interesting. In his report he said:

"… we believe that a Conservative Government should focus its efforts on enabling the provision of information, not advice. There is no need for Government advisors to try and compete with private and third sector agencies. Government should instead work through business experts, existing institutions and current programmes that could be reinforced rather than being reinvented".

Information is not just data, it can include "how to" texts which offer advice and help on setting up and running a business - the sort of thing that most public libraries and Business Link web sites provide. Richard argues that this is different to expert business advice delivered on a one-to-one basis. The later can be provided by independent paid for advisors operating in a free market and evaluated through web-based customer rating services similar to e-bay.

This model of business support is closer to the core purpose of library services. So far so good but there are obvious gaps. Who is running this national Business Information Service and how will it be funded. And who is funding the local B&IP centres. The "major libraries and leading universities" that are "accessible organisations that have the proven competence to deliver expert information services, providing depth behind the web-based service" need some incentive and support to take on this role. If Business Links are abolished will some of their funding be directed towards public libraries? One problem is that the "proven competence" of public libraries is being rapidly eroded at the present and so far there has been little evidence of the Government wanting to reverse this. It is ironic for Mark Prisk to be promoting a dynamic role for public libraries while his colleagues are handing the service over to volunteers.

Access to Business Information

From its very earliest days SINTO has been involved with the information needs of industry and business. In the 1930s SINTO was a partnership between Sheffield Libraries and the specialist library and information services of local steel and engineering companies enabling the loan of books and journals. Since then much has changed, but not always for the better. Small and medium enterprises today often face barriers in obtaining the information they need.

In 2000 SINTO produced an Objective 1 funding proposal for a South Yorkshire Business Information Library but it was not taken up. SINTO was involved in the Yorkshire MLA project Libraries are Good for Business which mapped business information provision in our region and looked at how it could be improved. I recently wrote to CILIP Update about the report Access by UK small and medium-sized enterprises to professional and academic information pointing out that public libraries were less able to provide for the needs of SMEs today than they were in the 1930s. This month I Tweeted on the report Business Information Resources: Landscape & Feasibility by Nigel Spencer which pointed out the fragmented nature of the information landscape This report stated that many obstacles exist to prevent businesses from finding and using business information and cited a lack of understanding of business needs by staff providing services. The report went on to identify key roles for public libraries, Business Links and the higher education institutions and recommended the creation of a national integrated service for information provision.

I was very interested therefore in the funding call from JISC to universities for projects that will demonstrate good practice in access to information resources for external parties, particularly small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs, but also other individuals and organisations. The call is part of the JISC Business and Community Engagement (BCE) programme designed to encourage partnerships between universities and the wider community to share knowledge and expertise for mutual benefit. Funds are available to support demonstrator projects in which higher or further education institutions take a leading role in facilitating an integrated information and knowledge service model, in partnership with other key agencies such as public libraries, publishers and business support agencies. The vision behind the business information resources work was for institutions to offer business information resources coupled with tailored advice and guidance from institutional experts. This would be provided both on-site and via remote access, by regional hubs in partnership with public libraries, with the support of local and regional bodies such as Regional Development Agencies. The intention now is that the resources are broadened beyond business information to include serviceable knowledge (i.e. institutional knowledge which is applied to solve external problems or create opportunities) and joined-up services.

Funding of £450,000 for up to 5 projects is available under the access to resources theme. The deadline for application is the 19th April 2010.
This project is to be welcomed as information provision for this sector has been neglected. My only reservation is that the current fragmented nature of the information landscape arose because over the years different organisations have been given a lead role in providing business information. It used to be the public libraries in our larger cities. Then Business Links were formed. The British Library Business and IP Centre was set up. Now universities are being encouraged to take on the role. I understand that collaboration and partnership are at the heart of this call but I wish there could be even more joined up thinking at the start.

Twitter as a resource for business information librarians

Twitter is a microblog - that is an application where you can post short messages which other people can then choose to follow. It can be used to keep your friend informed of what you are doing or it can be used professionally to disseminate information.

There is growing interest in the use of Twitter as a business tool in different areas. For example Phil Bradley recently wrote a piece in Library & Information Update about Twitter and librarians (April 2009). I will look at how Twitter might be a useful tool for the business information librarian.

One advantage of Twitter is that each post (tweet) has to be short, no more than 140 characters. As information overload and information obesity are major problems this enforced brevity can be very useful. Many people use Twitter to tell their followers about items they have posted on their blogs or websites so tweets can be seen as an alternative to RSS feeds. Regular checks of your Twitter feeds can keep you in touch with a wide range of useful sources of information.
Twitter is a form of social computing so it can be used not just for a one-way flow of information but as a networking tool to maintain a dialogue with colleagues. You can make use of this yourself and you can promote this to your users (e.g. small businesses which may feel isolated).

A probem with Twitter is that it is a very informal means of communication with many tweeters indulging in personal comments and asides. This is fun in small doses but can be a problem if you are trying to use it as a source of hard information. The business librarian probably needs to look at Twitter in three ways. First there are those tweets that are useful to you as a source of information. Second, tweeters that it would be useful for you to network with. Third, the wider world of business tweets that may be of interest to your users.

Sources of Information
(It is usual to prefix Twitter user names with @. When searching for people on Twitter do not use the @ prefix.)

@BIPC. British Library Business and Intellectual Property centre. Provides links to the new BIPC website.
@PATLIBUK. Supporting the UK's Inventers and Entrepreneurs with specialist patent and IP information and services
@baplig. Business and Patents. Leeds Library providing information for business, companies, inventors & students on patents, trademarks, copyright, designs, market research and much more.
@karenblakeman. Karen Blakeman. Karen is well known for her business information blog.
@intutebusiness. Intute Business. Covers the Intute Business website.
@BusinessLinkGov. Business Link

Networking
A useful way of developing a network using Twitter is to find someone of interest and look at who is following them and who they are following. Useful starting points might be:
@baplig (listed above)
@cityinfogroup. CiG A community for .people who work in and around the City of London, and utilise business and commercial information.
@tadpole99. Alison Williams. Business librarian by day. Haiku librarian by night.

General business tweets
There are of course thousands of these! Just Tweet It (http://justtweetit.com) is a directory of people who tweet organised by categories. However many of the categories contain hundreds of entries and most will be US based. There is a Twitter for Business section which includes "50 ideas on using Twitter for Business".

Here is a small selection of tweets I have come across:
@s4startups
@jennifersmith
@women_unlimited
@smallbiztweets
@businessnews
@TimesBusiness

And last, but not least - don't forget @SINTOcarl for keeping up-to-date with all things SINTO.

Business Information in Yorkshire

There have been some significant changes in the provision of business information in the Yorkshire region.

As from April 2008 the Business Link services in the Yorkshire and Humberside area have been delivered by a new provider. Y&H IDB has been selected by Yorkshire Forward as the contractor for the new regional Business Link. Y&H IDB has been set up by Examplas (which runs the east of England Business Link) and Reed in Partnership (which delivers New Deal and Train to Gain programmes in Yorkshire.

The main change is that the four regional Business Links have been replaced by the single Business Link Yorkshire based in Barnsley. It offers a "fast, friendly and practical business information from our experienced team of Information Advisers". The range of business information on offer is vast, backed by a broad network of library and technological resources. Information Adviser will help new start ups or established companies obtain the most appropriate package of support.

At the same time the South Yorkshire Euro Information Service has closed and been replaced by the new Enterprise Europe Yorkshire based in Bradford. Enterprise Europe Yorkshire is part of a Europe wide network with over 500 partners. Supported by the European Commission and Yorkshire Forward, they provide a comprehensive enquiry service on EU related matters for local businesses.

The development of these Yorkshire wide agencies for business information highlights the issues raised by SINTO in the Libraries are Good for Business project. This showed the difficulty of providing a comprehensive business information service for Yorkshire through 15 separate public library authorities. Despite their being no central planning or co-ordination, a structure has emerged with two libraries (Leeds and Sheffield) providing a regional service, others providing a specialised local service and a few which do not attempt to duplicate provision but refer specialist enquiries to other sources.

The project also demonstrated the difficulty of co-operation between Business Link and the public libraries with a lack of a strategic approach to co-operation and partnership working. Business Links have seldom regarded public library business information services as significant - but while Business Links serve the needs of businesses, business information is important to a much wider audience including consumers, trade unionists and business students. Public libraries also act as an access point for small businesses, start-ups and pre-start-ups. It would be nice to think that the development of a single Business Link would make dialogue and partnership easier, but with the demise of MLA Yorkshire there is no longer a single voice for libraries in the region.

One recommendation in Libraries are Good for Business was that public libraries (through the Society of Chief Librarians Yorkshire) and Yorkshire Forward should develop their role in the Better Deal for Business framework beginning with libraries signing up to this framework. SCL Yorkshire was not able to take this basic step and in most authorities business information services are being cut back. The contrast between a single Business Link and EIC on the one hand and a fractured public library provision on the other is stark and the profession seems unable to respond, as it has done in the past, by working together.

SINTO, meanwhile, produces a directory of business information services in Yorkshire to enable resource sharing, networking and referral; and runs a business information group. for more information contact the SINTO office.

Business informatiom

This will be my final posting for 2007 so Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I started this blog in February and my hit counter statistics indicate that I get about 10 views on average every day during the working week. This is not overwhelming but does indicate a moderate level of interest. If you do find the blog of interest, please spread the word.

But this is a working blog so let's get down to business - the SINTO Business Information Newsletter to be exact. I have just published issue 30 for December 2007 and distributed it to my mailing list. here are some of the "highlights".

Venturenavigator
A free online advice service aimed at small businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs, has been launched recently. The new service, funded by the UK government, aims to improve the success rate of British businesses.
The site will offer impartial, expert advice to businesses and provide access to a comprehensive library of resources, including an online community for businesses and entrepreneurs to network and share knowledge.
The online panel will include former dragon in the BBC’s ‘Dragon’s Den’ and Chairman of Library House, Doug Richard and Al Gosling, founder and CEO of The Extreme Group.


Business Information Blog
ADSET Business Information Blog (no relation to the Adsetts Learning Centre) is aimed at small businesses and carries regular postings about a range of business related news stories. It seems particularly good on news about new legislation.

Translation on-line
Barbara Verble provided a list of online translation services in Freepint.

* Omniglot
* FreeTranslation
* PROMT
* WorldLingo
* Freelang.net

See you next year.
Carl Clayton

Dancing with wolves

This is a bit of self-plagiarism. The following piece was published in the City Business Magazine Dec/Jan 2005/6 issue. This magazine is circulated free to SMEs in South Yorkshire.

This is a tale from North America. A young Native American boy wants to put his courage to the test so he asks his grandfather to take him into the wild forest. They enter the forest and the old man leads his grandson deep into its heart. They come to the edge of a clearing and peering through the leaves the boy sees that resting in the clearing is a pack of wolves. These creatures are notorious for their size, fierceness and cunning. His courage seeps away and the boy trembles in fear, but when he turns to his grandfather he sees that the old man is calm and relaxed.

Then something disturbs the pack. They get to their feet and slink off into the undergrowth without a sound. The clearing is now empty and peaceful. The boy regains his courage and turns to his grandfather with a smile on his face - only to see his grandfather shivering with fear...

The moral of this story is that in life - or business - the real dangers that threaten us are not the things we know about but the things we don't know about. More information can help reduce these "unknowns" but we inevitably concentrate on the "known unknowns" and forget about the "unknown unknowns" - the wolves that we don't know are there.

One solution is to conduct an environmental review - to examine the environment in which your business operates in and look out for the wolves. A memory aid for this used to be PEST = Political, Economic, Social and Technological, but this has now been inflated to SEPTEMBER - Social, Economic, Political, Technological, Environmental, Marketing, Buying groups, Equilibrium of power and Regulatory.

Whatever acronym we use we should sit back every so often and scan the environment. And if we don't see any wolves we should ask ourselves "where are they hiding?"

Business Information

For some time now I have been producing a Business Information Newsletter. This comes out roughly every month and contains snippets about sources of information that may be of interest to businesses or business information services. I produces it as a Word document and e-mail it out to a mailing list of subscribers. It is free of charge to existing SINTO members and anyone can be added to the mailing list on request.

This newsletter is in effect a blog and I have been thinking of merging the two but for the moment I will continue to produce it in its present format. However I will include some extracts in this blog.

The current issue (No 29 October) has a theme of business information about other countries:

• Onkosh is a search engine portal which specialises in finding anything in Arabic or Arabic-related in English or French.
• Freepint recently had an article on sources of information about China.
• The International Monetary Fund produces a bi-annual World Economic Outlook database containing macroeconomic data for individual countries.

Floods latest

Flooding in the Don Valley. Picture from Business Link South Yorkshire.

Over the last few days the floods have moved down the Don Valley from Sheffield and Rotherham to Doncaster. Rotherham station is still closed and there is disruption to travel around Doncaster. However, the sun is shining at the moment and the waters are receding. But there is still the possibility of more heavy rain at the weekend.

The Don Valley which suffered the brunt of the flooding on Monday is a major industrial site and industry in Sheffield has been seriously hit. Unfortunately, Business Link South Yorkshire which might have been a major source of help to affected companies is also located in this area and was itself badly affected. Today they were able to circulate an e-mail update containing a list of useful contact numbers. The above picture is taken from this e-mail and I have added the list of numbers below. (Stop press. I have added two extra numbers given out by Radio Sheffield)

Useful Telephone Numbers
Public helpline to co-ordinate all requests for help with the clean up operation.
All South Yorkshire
0800 915 6912

Sheffield Council Surrey Street Sheffield S1 2HH
Emergency Planning Department
0114 272 6444
0114 273 6844

Sheffield Business Floodline
0800 915 6913

Doncaster Council 2 Priory Place Doncaster DN1 1BN
Emergency Planning Department
01302 734444
01302 736901

Barnsley Council Town Hall Barnsley S70 2TA
Emergency Planning Department
01226 770770
01226 772099

Rotherham CouncilBailey House Rawmarsh Road Rotherham S60 1TD
Emergency Planning Department
01709 823870 01709 823877 01709 823876

Environment Agency
Floodline
0845 988 1188

South Yorkshire Police
If traffic is causing waves to further flood your property
0114 220 2020

Yorkshire Water
If flooding is being caused by a public sewer
0845 124 2429

YEDL
Electricity Supply
0800 375 675

National Grid
Gas Supply
0800 111 999

Yorkshire Water
Water Supply
0845 124 2424

Yorkshire Forward
Grants for SMEs affected by floods
0800 0226201

Health and Safety Executive Edgar Allen House 241 Glossop Road Sheffield S10 2GW
Covers all South Yorkshire for health & safety issues.
0114 291 2300
0114 291 2379

Environmental Health Department
Rotherham
01709 382 121

Environmental Health Department
Sheffield
0114 273 4611

Environmental Health Department
Doncaster
01302 734 444

Environmental Health Department
Barnsley
01226 772 498

Business Information Newsletter

I have just circulated the latest issue of the SINTO Business Information Newsletter to subscribers. This electronic newsletter was started in January 2004 to provide a digest of sources of business information for information workers in small businesses which did not have their own information service. In fact it has proved to be of value to librarians providing business information services in a wide range of library and information services.
Back issue of the newsletter can be found on the SINTO website. It is free to SINTO members or you can subscribe as a non-member for £43 pa. If you would like to be added to the mailing list please contact me.

A Mixed bag

Devastating news in the Guardian yesterday that several of my fellow bloggers such as Gillian Anderson, Barbra Streisland and Mariah Carey are not keeping their blogs up-to-date and may be loosing interest altogether. So if you have migrated to this Sintoblog looking for consistency I can assure you that I am in for the long haul! And following my earlier musings about whether anyone was reading this I had lots of comments (well three to be exact) encouraging me to continue and not worry too much if no one responded.

A celebrity blog that is staying the course is that of incoming CILIP President Ian Snowley Ian has been keeping a blog for some time - his 100th posting was in January 2006 - and as the new President of our professional association there should be some interesting professional postings. Ian's blog is more personal than my SINTO blog but I am working on that. (Toast and LIME marmalade for breakfast this morning). His latest posting begins "I hadn't planned to post from China, but I'm here in Beijing with an internet connection in the room, so I thought I would!" Now that is just showing off Ian! My readers in Beijing might like to know that it was quite foggy this morning in Sheffield.

The plagiarism for librarians course which was due to run yesterday was cancelled because of lack of demand but the Plagiarism Information Service did run a course in the morning for FE colleges and one librarian did attend that. I will be putting up a copy of the presentation and other information on the SINTO wiki.

I attended a meeting of the MLA Yorkshire Workforce Development Group on Monday. The purpose of the group is to “act as a strategic body focused on addressing the challenge of the sector which is to enable museums, libraries and archives to be learning organisations which develop a motivated appropriately skilled, diverse and outward-looking workforce capable of delivering high-quality services to all users.” I plan to put some information about workforce development on the wiki (and see my previous blog postings).

I have for some time been producing a Business Information Newsletter which I circulate to SINTO members on a regular basis. The latest issue is due out soon but you might like to note the following item from Sue Sayles of Sheffield Libraries.

I would be glad if you would put details of the next Sheffield Inventors'
Group meeting in your e-newsletters.
Its a joint meeting for April/May.
Monday 23 April 2007, at the Central Library,Sheffield, 6pm-7.45pm. Meet in the entrance foyer Speakers will be David Thomas and Aldo de Leonibus of Inventya on "Product to the Marketplace"
There is also the opportunity to network with other inventors and talk with business and patent information providers.

To book a free place at the meeting, email businessandtech.library@sheffield.gov.uk or telephone 0114 274 4743
From June the meetings of the Sheffield Inventors' Group will revert back to the first Monday in each month.

Business information services

I was at a meeting of the SINTO Business Information Group yesterday and the main item was the Libraries are Good for Business Report (LG4B). The LG4B project was initiated by MLA Yorkshire as a programme of research and advocacy on public library business information provision in the Yorkshire region. The aim was to map existing provision, to encourage the development of a coordinated regional offer involving the fifteen library authorities and to provide evidence to support MLA Yorkshire in its advocacy of public libraries at the regional level - especially with Yorkshire Forward. This work had been carried out by the Centre for the Public Library and Information in Society (CIPLIS) and myself.

The research has shown a fairly strong provision of business information in most areas although this is threatened by cuts and restructuring in some areas. The research also demonstrated that a regional structure has evolved (I don't think anyone planned this) with a hierarchy of business information services. Sheffield and Leeds provide 'advanced' services providing support for the wider region. Other 'developed' services provide a good level of service to their own area which can be supported by referral to an advanced service while a few 'basic' services rely heavily on outsourcing or referral.

Co-operation between business libraries is well developed in South and West Yorkshire through SINTO. North Yorkshire is a special case and seems happy to be self reliant while Humberside has struggled to maintain local co-operation in recent years. The Humberside libraries have been invited to participate in SINTO. Contacts with local Business Links has always been seen to be important but can be patchy and there is a lack of a strategic approach to co-operation and partnership working.

MLA Yorkshire has use this work to support advocacy with Yorkshire Forward and in the Regional Economic Strategy for Yorkshire and Humber 2006-2015 there is a specific reference to the need for good connections with public libraries in the context of the Better Deal for Business Framework (BD4B). MLA Yorkshire has proposed to the Society of Chief Librarians Yorkshire (SCLY) that there should be a formal sign up of libraries to this framework which would raise the profile of public libraries as part of the regional business support network.

My final report on this project makes a number of recommendations for action. More details can be found on the Business Information Group page of the SINTO wiki. However it is very easy for reports to disappear into a black hole and not to have any influence on strategic planning. There are worrying signs. MLA Yorkshire has said this project is now finished and it is not clear if they will continue to press Yorkshire Forward on this issue. There also seems to be a lack of involvement by Heads of Service with this research and I have no idea if SCLY are planning to sign up to BD4B. Finally I am not convinced that Yorkshire Forward really recognises the importance of information within their Regional Economic Strategy. It would be a great pity if this report were to end up in the wpb or even worse - filed away on a library shelf and ignored.