In Internet age, libraries still a source of business data

Marc Tiar has an old-fashioned suggestion for Web-savvy businesspeople trolling the Internet for the information they need for a budget or marketing plan:

Try the public library, too.

Along with traditional business reference publications, the Washoe County Library System has invested heavily in recent years in on-line databases, says Tiar, a technology services librarian at the downtown Reno branch.

He pulls up, for instance, the Reference USA Database with its detailed information on about 12 million U.S. businesses. With a few keystrokes, Tiar brings up a listing of Reno-area businesses by industry including the contact names and phone numbers prized by sales representatives.

The database free to anyone who has a library card is accessible only from the downtown library location. Most of the other database services in the library's collection, however, are available to users from their office computer.

Those on-line services range from CQ Researcher, with its in-depth report on hot issues in the news, to Today's Science, which details developments in technology, science, health and medicine.

Businesspeople with research questions also can enlist the help of skilled reference librarians through the library system's Web site (washoe.lib.nv.us).

Tiar was called up one recent day, for instance, to track down some information about an early-day transit company in Reno.

Even though many folks who once came to the downtown library's business collection have migrated to the Internet, Tiar says a steady stream of patrons continue to use the business-oriented books, magazines and reference materials.

Some, he says, are experienced investors who prefer to use publications such as Barron's or the Wall Street Journal to track their investments. Others have figured out that they can use expensive research services such as Value Line for free at the library.

"Stocks and investment research are the biggest use of this room," Tiar says.

Others patrons search for copies of commonly used business forms or research the steps for preparation of a business plan.

And still others use the business reference material to develop marketing plans. Some, for instance, rely on publications that detail demographic information by ZIP Codes.

But the business reference room seldom is crowded.

"The electronic age has kept a lot of people in their office rather than coming in," Tiar says. "This is under-used. People don't think of this as a place for doing business research."