Learn how you can use creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship as powerful forces for positive and productive change benefiting staff and users. Given the pressures of automation, budget issues, and staff development concerns, creative thinking in the library profession is a necessity, not a luxury. For the first time in a single volume, librarians share specific, practical ways in which managers can release creativity in themselves and their staffs, in order to find solutions to new problems, as well as new ways to address old challenges. The contributors to Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship also describe how they used creative thinking to develop a very successful fund raising plan, significantly reduce the risks of developing new services in library networks, take part in effective communication between library educators and practitioners to ensure that library science students are better prepared for the field, and much more.

The old image of an entrepreneur as a scrappy, independent risk-taker has been replaced by the reality of individuals incorporating innovative ideas in more traditional settings.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.

Although libraries are not businesses, library management must be driven by the same characteristics that make a business successful -- responsibility, performance, and control. Entrepreneurial Librarianship offers specific techniques for creating an entrepreneurial environment in a library or information services organization -- or initiating such techniques where a less-successful operation is already in place.

Amidst uncertain times rife with challenges and potential catastrophes, prudently managing risk will bolster your library's resilience in the face of adversity. And by being attentive to lowering risk, you’ll help keep insurance costs in check. This succinct manual for trustees and administrators offers straightforward guidance for designing and implementing a library risk management program. You’ll get succinct advice on such essentials as - the five major areas of risk and loss for libraries, with an overview of the types of property and casualty coverage common to most libraries; - how to determine if the new framework of enterprise risk management is right for your library; - elements of a good risk policy statement; - tips for determining the value of your collection, plus a sample risk assessment template; - the most library-relevant portions of the National Fire Code; - insurance considerations for remodeling or construction projects; - advice on cybersecurity and handling cyberattacks; - setting up an emergency response team that is ready when disaster threatens; - developing a financial plan that assures uninterrupted service despite adverse conditions; and - guidance on the paperwork a claims adjuster will require. This to-the-point resource will lead you onto the best path to safeguarding your library’s assets and future.

A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.