Science Industry & Business Library Celebrates its Twentieth Birthday!

The Science Industry & Business Library (SIBL) is the New York Public Library’s premiere business library.  SIBL celebrated its 20th birthday this week, and held a celebration which aptly recognized the library’s value and importance to a broad community of entrepreneurs, small business owners, and others.

Some years ago, I had become known to the SIBL director Kristin McDonough as a frequent user of SIBL, and agreed to be videotaped for the NYPL archives, talking about the ways I use the library to help my clients.

In the same spirit, I was invited to this week’s birthday celebration, and asked to speak about the value SIBL has been to me and my clients.

As I told the attendees, NY City small business owners typically don’t have the in-house research capabilities which they would need to uncover information about growth, key competitors or typical profit margins in their industry.  But they certainly have a need for these insights, to help inform them on the best strategic courses of action.  This is where SIBL is an invaluable resource, with on-line user access to research databases such as First Reference, Ebsco Host, Plunkett and D&B, and expert research librarians who can advise you on the offerings of these research databases, and many others.