WHITEHALL — The Whitehall Community Library is filled to the brim with information for business owners. But how can business owners access them during their busy workday?
Thanks to a grant given by Montana Libraries SPARK, the library opened a business resource center to help new and established owners find the information they need as quickly as possible.
"It’s a natural partnership because librarians love to research and the one thing business people don’t have is a lot of time to go looking up individual pieces of information," said Jeannie Ferriss.
The Montana State Library in partnership with Accelerate Montana Rural Innovation Initiative created Montana Libraries SPARK to “provide programming ideas and professional development opportunities for librarians in order to empower Montana's public libraries to support and assist business and economic development communities.”
The new business resource center will help new and old businesses find information and host speakers to help business owners looking for advice.
"Our business is to help refer people to the experts. We’re not business experts, we don’t pretend to be, but we have contacts with people who are, whose whole goal is to really assist those people in being successful," said Ferriss.
Ferris says that libraries play an important role in the first steps toward economic development from small towns to statewide development.
"The Whitehall area is a kind of a small hub of smaller towns around us and so to be able to have people from all over come in and say well I had this great idea, where do I start?" said Ferriss.
Starting September 14, the Whitehall Community Library will host guest speakers as part of their project with the business resource center.
