A Portland library is stepping up its services for businesses statewide
Courtesy / Portland Public Library
The Portland Public Library is doing more to help new and small businesses find resources.
When an entrepreneur recently needed help setting up a gold mining operation in his home country of Congo, he turned to perhaps an unlikely source of assistance: the Portland Public Library.
The library not only gave him access to business services and information, but also connected him with people in the industry, including expert excavators in western Maine.
All with the help of a free library card.
The Portland Public Library is now working to expand its services for business, said Myles Robert, the Portland Public Library’s business and government librarian. The assistance ranges from workshops on starting and growing a business to accessing thousands of actual business plans.
The library serves nearly 700,000 visitors to its four locations and bookmobile each year.
“Access to Portland Public Library’s business resource collection didn’t skip a beat during the COVID lockdown. We continued to purchase the latest best-selling books each month and maintained our calendar of events, albeit online. Meanwhile, usage of our database collection stayed steady,” Robert said.
The library boasts resources such as the business plans collection, found on the library website, with 45 volumes of more than 1,000 real business plans in a broad range of industries. Many of the plans are "unique and quite eccentric," Robert said.
The library assists entrepreneurs beyond Portland, Robert said, and have included a seaweed operation on the midcoast and a hair salon geared for people of color in Androscoggin County.
While the library is free for Portland residents and workers, business owners outside of Cumberland and York counties can gain access to the Portland Public Library’s resources for $20 a year.
The library is broadening internet access by extending its Wi-Fi signal to Monument Square 24 hours a day and to patrons' Wi-Fi hotspots. A former member of Portland City Council applauded the circulation of hotspots, saying it allowed her to attend a council meeting virtually while she was in the Moosehead Lake region, Robert said.
The library also is trying to play its part in workforce development by helping both job seekers and business owners looking for workers.
“Given that the current labor market is of vital concern to the success of our local business community, we are increasing the resources that we offer for job seekers and businesses looking to hire,” Robert said.
“We are working closely with the Greater Portland CareerCenter as well as the city of Portland’s Department of Economic Opportunity and the Small Business Alliance. This fall the library will establish itself as a CareerCenter Hub.”
The library also offers “Resources for Your Small Business Workshops” in partnership with SCORE and New Ventures.
“We have had good attendance in each session. We often receive requests for advanced instruction from individual entrepreneurs following up after they’ve attended these workshops,” Robert said.
The library also collaborates with the Greater Portland Chamber of Commerce by providing reading materials related to its Eggs & Issues business forum each month. Organizations such as the Immigrant Welcome Center and Workforce Solutions also have collaborated with the library.
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