New York SBDC Research Network

Harvey Mackay On Business Published: 12:00 a.m., Sunday, September 5, 2010 Albany Times Union Studies show that children who use the library tend to perform better in school. They are also more likely to continue learning and exploring throughout their lives. If you don't use the library for business, now is a good time to start. We can obtain a high percentage of the information we need via search engines using our home or work computers. But there are a lot of hidden business jewels available at your local library, and many of them can be accessed online. The average small business or job seeker is penalized by having limited research capabilities. Big companies with big budgets pay for expensive databases. With a mouse click, they can instantly access company data, sort through research reports, and locate current and archived newspaper and trade journal articles. Small companies and individuals who can't afford premium access are left out. Unless they have a local library c

It's been go-go-go here at the Research Network since the beginning of October. As a result, I've not had much chance to look at the usage statistics since then (nor has there been much in the way of blog posts lately, either . . . sorry about that). However, with the dawn of the new year, things have calmed down just enough for me to take a peek. Whoa. We've been running this library since October 1991. Among other things, I've a spreadsheet that breaks down requests from you for every month since then. From what I'm seeing, we just finished the busiest December in our history. And the busiest November. And the busiest October. I appreciate your ongoing trust in asking for our help with your clients. Discovering this is just the motivation I need during the cold, cold doldrums of early January. (And the average turnaround for each request has been just under 7 calendar days, a pace that also helps keep us warm up here.) (And sorry, again, for the lack of posts. Ha