P3
COMMUNICATION & COUNSEL
Subject: Business
Services Strategy Report for 2008
Prepared by: City
Librarian
Prepared for: Ottawa Public Library Board
Meeting of: April 20, 2009
Date of preparation: April 9, 2009
1.
In
September 2007, Joan Cavanagh, Manager of Information Services made a
presentation to the Board outlining the information services provided by OPL
including support for the emerging information program for small and medium
sized business.
2.
In
2008 the Board approved a new Strategic Directions and Priorities 2008-2011
document. Strategic Direction A places an emphasis on providing responsive
service with a key priority to focus on our future leaders and in particular
youth, newcomers and entrepreneurs and small business.
3. In 2008 a dedicated business services team was
formed and services and outreach to the business community were significantly
strengthened. Strategic objectives were developed with accompanying action
strategies.
4. Attached is a report on results and activities against objectives for the new Business Services Strategy. This report has been prepared by Joan Cavanagh, Manager of Information Services. This is her last report to the Board before her departure from Ottawa Public Library to become Associate University Librarian (Access) for the Université d’Ottawa. Ms Cavanagh will be at the Board meeting to present this report.
Business Services Strategy
Report on Activities - 2008
“Focus on our future
leaders – Engage and support key groups who will influence Ottawa’s future
success: youth, newcomers, entrepreneurs and small business.”
Ottawa Public Library Board Strategic Directions 2008-2011
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“more
businesspeople should take advantage of the many tools that exist in Ottawa
to help them approach the next level…there are less-publicized venues - the
Ottawa Public Library, for instance - that offer priceless business
counselling for wannabe startup honchos and SMEs.” Ottawa Business
Journal. February 9, 2009 |
Strategic Objectives: 1. To increase awareness in the community of the
range of business resources and services already available through the Ottawa
Public Library and the value these offer to existing small businesses and
people thinking of starting a business. 2. To strengthen existing partnerships and develop
new ones that will leverage our respective strengths; to collaborate on
workshops and programs and develop a strong and effective referral network to
connect our small business clients with the right resources. 3. To learn more about the characteristics of our business
users, better understand their information needs and establish appropriate
performance measures to assess the service as it continues to develop. |
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“I feel like I just met my fairy godmother! …Jill Hawken from the Ottawa
Public Library was fantastic and did a terrific presentation explaining the
FREE access to vast amounts of information that’s available to anyone with a
library card. It was like finding Ali
Baba’s cave!” Small Business Association member |
Business & Career
Services Team: Key to our ability to
accomplish our strategic goals was having the necessary staff resources to
dedicate to this aspect of our service. From April to September 2008, the
Business & Career Services team was formed. This included filling the new, full-time Business librarian
position that was approved as part of the 2008 budget process. Four team members
contribute portions of their time to this initiative. Together, they are responsible for
initiating and offering programs, for website content development, community
outreach, marketing, selection, specialized reference/research service,
service planning and evaluation, staff training and communications, and other
activities related to Business & Career Services. Team members are: Julie
Desmarais (0.4 FTE, focussing on support for job-seekers), Jill Hawken (1.0
FTE), Terry Sarazen (0.08) FTE and Krista Woltman (0.5 FTE). |
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“Looking at the business resources and
services, awareness among entrepreneurs and business representatives varied considerably,
with a majority (76%) aware of only one resource – the library’s collection
of books, e-books, magazine and DVDs.” Phoenix Strategic Perspectives Inc., OPL Needs Assessment |
Strategic
Objective #1: To increase awareness in the community of the
range of business resources and services already available through the Ottawa
Public Library and the value these offer to existing small businesses and
people thinking of starting a business. 2008 Activities: 1A. Outreach To increase awareness in
the community of the range of resources and services for small businesses and
aspiring entrepreneurs, we have placed a strong emphasis on community
outreach activities. We have already
seen immediate benefits from the time invested in this activity – increased
awareness of the Library’s role in supporting small business, the development
of a network of contacts and invitations to participate in events and to
collaborate on programs. Highlights of outreach
activities in 2008 include: Business
Improvement Areas (BIAs): Staff
met with the executive directors of a number of area BIAs in 2008 and will
continue to connect with others through 2009. In some cases, meeting led to
invitations to present information about OPL’s business services to the
membership. In others, we were
offered the opportunity to include an article about our services in the
membership newsletter. ·
Quartier
Vanier. A brief article about OPL
services was included in their newsletter, distributed to all members. A
presentation to members is planned for early 2009. ·
Sparks Street
BIA. An article about OPL services
was also included in their membership newsletter. ·
Somerset Heights
BIA. An article about OPL services
was included in their membership newsletter and was also translated into
Chinese and Vietnamese. ·
Glebe BIA. Staff attended the annual general meeting
(AGM) of the Glebe BIA on December 9th to meet their members and
spread awareness of library services. ·
Preston Street BIA.
Staff have been invited to exhibit at their 2009 AGM. ·
Byward Market
BIA. Staff attended their 2008 AGM on
November 28th, attended by 100 members. |
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Other
Outreach Contacts: ·
Business Advisory
Committee. Attended the September
meeting of the BAC and met the members who were present (they did not have
quorum). ·
Business Breakfast Club. A business networking group in Ottawa. The CEO distributed 50 copies of posters
for our Small Business Week series to his membership for us. ·
ITO 2.0. The Information Technology Orientation
(ITO) supports individuals who are seeking to return to work within the
Information Technology and Communication sector. Relevant OPL events will be posted on the bulletin board on the
ITO website. We will also be
following up with them regarding participating in occasional trade fairs
organized by ITO. ·
MomPowered. An organization designed to support and
provide networking opportunities for “mompreneurs”. ·
Small Business
Association. Attended their AGM and
was subsequently invited to give a presentation about OPL’s business services
at one of their regular member meetings. ·
Women’s Business
Network. Met with Executive Director
and attended an event held by the network to talk about business resources at the
Library, and explore possibilities for developing a partnership. |
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“I visited your booth at the Ottawa Business Summit. Until then
I had no idea how many resources you offered to local businesses.” E-mail
from the executive vice-president of a local investment management firm. |
1B.
Events
We have found that
participating in business events taking place in Ottawa, most often as an
exhibitor, pays off by allowing us to build a network of contacts, increasing
referrals and word-of-mouth advertising, identifying potential presenters for
future programs, and increasing our own awareness of all the different types
of organizations and services that exist to support small businesses. We have also offered various programs and
workshops on topics of interest to the local business community. The following are events we participated in
during 2008: ·
SOHO SME Business
Conference and Expo, May 27, 2008. ·
Home-Based Business Expo at
Kanata Legion, June 11, 2008. ·
Chamber of Commerce,
Business After Hours event, October 15th. ·
Ottawa Community
Loan Fund (OCLF) Financial Literacy Summit, October 28th. This organization aims to educate and
inform individuals working with vulnerable populations on the financial
literacy issues, services and resources that exist throughout the community,
to assist them in better serving their clients. |
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1C. Marketing & Promotion
We continue to seek out opportunities to
market our services. For our Small
Business Week series, we were fortunate to have some funding available for
mainstream media advertising. By and
large our efforts are focused on low or no-cost strategies for “getting the
word out” about our Business Services. ·
Business E-news.
Issued bi-monthly. We
currently have over 200 individual and group subscribers. ·
OPL’s business services were featured in an article
in Nepean This Week in August/08. ·
OPL’s Small Business Week program series was
featured in an article in the Ottawa Business Journal, October 10, 2008. ·
We use our growing network as a way to market and
promote our programs, e.g. using local e-bulletin boards hosted by
organizations like the Ottawa Business Journal, Ottawa Starts, the Business
Breakfast Club, etc. ·
Google Ads. We used Google’s AdWords to create ads
that display when people entered certain keywords into the Google search
engine (e.g. Ottawa + small business + market research). At a cost of only $5, this is a very
low-cost service to use on an intermittent basis and recognizes the research
that shows the extent to which people rely on search engines as their first
step in doing research.
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Strategic Objective #2: To strengthen existing partnerships and develop new ones
that will leverage our respective strengths; to collaborate on workshops and
programs and develop a strong and effective referral network to connect our
small business clients with the right resources.
2008 Activities:
2A.
Partnerships
We have re-established
our partnerships with both the Y Enterprise Centre and the Entrepreneurship
Centre. Library staff are included as
regular program presenters for both organizations, specializing in workshops relating
to market research. Both the Y Enterprise
Centre and the Entrepreneurship Centre regularly refer their clients to the
Library for research assistance and we refer users back to these two
organizations for services that they offer.
The Library’s business-related programs are posted on the
Entrepreneurship Centre’s calendar and the EC will also be presenting some of
their own workshops at library branches including Orléans, Centennial and
Cumberland. This will allow them to
make their services more widely accessible to those who prefer not to travel
downtown. We are working closely
with many of the Newcomer Information Officers in our branch libraries,
collaborating with them to develop programs that are tailored to particular
newcomer communities. Jill
Hawken was also invited to sit on a new committee established by the Social
Planning Council of Ottawa – the Ethnic / Cultural Minority and Aboriginal
Business Assistance Hub. The group’s
mandate is to identify agencies that provide business training to ethnic and visible
minority and aboriginal peoples in the city, identify gaps in service and try
to determine how to fill those gaps. |
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2B.
Programs
One of our goals is to
partner with other organizations to deliver programs and workshops that meet
the needs of small businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs. Programs we offered in
2008 included: ·
OPL Small Business
Week Speaker Series, October 20-24.
We held a well-attended week-long series of programs on topics of
interest to small businesses: Tools & resources for budding
entrepreneurs; Doing business with the government; Career &
entrepreneurial services for women; How to qualify for business financing;
and What you need to know about small business taxation. ·
Business Resources at Ottawa Public
Library – workshops were offered at Beaverbrook, Greenboro, North Gloucester,
Ruth E. Dickinson and Nepean Centrepointe in September-October 2008 to
provide information about resources and services available at OPL. ·
At the school’s invitation, we offered a workshop to
Algonquin College students as part of their “Essential Skills for Success”
program. |
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Most business users (72%) consider the
OPL to be a moderately valuable resource (40% said very
valuable). Phoenix Strategic Perspectives Inc.,
OPL Needs Assessment “I
have some feedback from a satisfied client for you. I was buying bread at a
new bakery on Gladstone, when the owner noticed my OPL lanyard and asked if I
worked at the library. She said she had a lot of help from you in getting
their business plan done, and was very grateful.” Inta Douglas, Library
Manager |
Strategic Objective #3: To
learn more about the characteristics of our business users, better understand
their information needs and establish appropriate performance measures to
assess the service as it continues to develop. 2008 Activities: The 2008 OPL Needs
Assessment included business owners or entrepreneurs among the target
audience modules. This study provided an excellent starting point for
understanding more about the level of awareness of services and specific
areas of interest. Building on that
information, in 2008 the Library gave permission for students at Algonquin
College’s Library and Information Technician program to undertake a research
project on OPL’s business services as part of their coursework. The research
project will be completed in 2009 and seeks to address the following
objectives: ·
To determine
awareness of the business services offered by OPL ·
To determine the
information sources being used by small business owners ·
To understand the
kind of information needed by small businesses ·
To evaluate the
effectiveness of the business services at OPL ·
To measure the
impact of information provision on small businesses ·
To research and
recommend best practices for marketing library services The research project will
be completed in 2009. The results of
the study will build on the initial information about business services
provided by the 2008 OPL Needs Assessment. |
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“Small businesses that don’t have the ability to adapt and reposition
their businesses with current and detailed online information are at a
serious disadvantage in the competitive, global new economy.” Making Cities Stronger: public library contributions to
local economic development. |
Other
Activities:
Personalized
Research Assistance
Business Consultations: We have been offering one-on-one business consultations at Nepean
Centrepointe for two years. This
service goes beyond the assistance that is provided at information desks at
these locations and elsewhere in the system.
The service recognizes the reality that gathering the information
necessary business planning and development can be a complex, multi-stage
process. Consultations frequently focus on helping people to gather information
necessary for market research and/or developing a business plan. Other
consultations focus on the steps involved in navigating the various
government regulations, forms and applications that are essential to starting
a business. With our additional business librarian in place, we were able to
expand this service and provide bilingual research consultations at the Main
Library. From April to December
librarians Jill Hawken at the Main Library and Krista Woltman at the Nepean
Centrepointe Branch conducted 188 business research consultations. Business Registrations: People are no longer required to register their businesses at
dedicated computers at designated sites.
It is possible for them to complete all the necessary steps from any
computer connect to the Internet. Nonetheless, an estimated 10-20 people per week visit the Nepean
Centrepointe branch for the express purpose of getting help registering their
business. Nepean Centrepointe’s many
years of offering that service, combined with the availability of staff
assistance with what can be a complicated process, make the branch a
destination for business registration. |
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Submitted by: Joan Cavanagh Manager,
Information Services, |
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