hi i'm angelo frenzy i'd like to welcome you to this version of the belmont business report in today we have a special treat the show today is going to be a little bit different twist from what we've done in the past we have with us today  joanna breen who is a reference librarian at the belmont public library welcome joanna thank you thanks for having us but at the library for a little over a year although she was part time when she was she said to us at the library and it's this amazing it really is amazing we have so many resources that are available to us and i just learn many of them are available to us at our home we could actually connect up to  the internet and get on to the services directly so what did you tell me about some of the services we have there joanna i'd love to so from home you can access a whole host of resources from the library with your library card so if you have a belmont library card you visit our web site at belmont dot l i b m a us and we have a business and career section so some of things that might be of interest to our audience i would think would be reference usa which is a directory of businesses and consumers and reference usa you can make you can make lists of businesses in your area and perform market research so you could find how many ice cream parlors were in within two miles of belmont and you could find out how many a women or men were interested in apparel in belmont if you were go could search for people interested in certain things and maybe to do a mailing more figure out whether you actually wanted to start a business in a certain area like ferreting out the competition and kind of the strengths of the businesses that are already there one of the things that strikes me is the better how aware you are of business i mean virtually any level of what i would if i was sitting at home thinking gee i'd really like to start a business go down the library get on some of these websites th studies figure out where you want to be it's all right available bailable for you right right at the right at the library yeah absolutely and it's free and if you're at that beginning point there is also another database you can access called career transitions where you kind of get to explore these kind of possibilities and they have kind of inside tips on what it's like to be self employed or what you know being an entrepreneur and kind of how you would get started so if you're at the very beginning you could you know really start and say ok am i am i really interested in entrepreneurship by just kind of walking on to the library go to going to career resources excuse me career transitions and you know kind of it's almost like a little bit of a personality test you know any mean they have different obviously lines of work you can look up education and all these other things but they do have a specific track first small business and entrepreneurship to kind of give you a taste of it before you you know business yeah you happened to drop off one of these business or folders i'm sure they could go to the library pick it up off the shelf down there right yes you can and it gives a list of all of the services down there would let me just run through them real quick and maybe when i get done you may want to comment on some of them you've got business insights yet you've got careers transitions which is the one that you just mentioned you've got a central register and goods and services bulletin you've got a general business file  you've got lexis nexis which i remember from graduate school that was a very very powerful program and as well as star investments bloomberg we've got reference  very powerful software package that for people that are interested in mutual funds wall street journal downloading the wall street journal and then finally  's really very very powerful yet i think that they're all excellent just for you know building your knowledge base even if you are kind of a seasoned business professional or what have you it's there's a lot of resources here that can confirm what you are you know or maybe bring out things that you didn't know the whites ratings as nice because if you need a new insurer they will rate and companies to write in business  insurance and they have you know and they're about us page talking about their success rate basically saying that something like ninety eight percent of the banks we rated d n a s were ones that fa things that make you think like oh this might be a good place to check out and you know you always want to do your cross referencing and not just take anyone's word for it but these are good ball and trusted resources for many people  one thing that you mentioned was the central register and goods and services bull bulletin and so that's a state subscription that's a little that's available only at the library but if you were a construction business or something that's where  towns put put things out to bad so they wanted to make a new pool for example that goes out to bed and you can see everything that's out to bid if you want your company to bid on it so that's a nice resource to to be able to know what towns looking for what services and  can you and your company provide what else is here the testing education reference on or is it mostly geared toward students but there are some basic computer skills and we're kind of at a weird time  technology where you have some people that are very skilled in technology and you have some people that are not so you can learn microsoft office suite take a tutorial on x l which is really helpful in businesses in terms of figuring out all how the functions work now it's really a twenty four seven library and libraries are still positioned as like an authority place to get information and now you have additional access to if you have internet connection at home and obama library cards will address the access now these services mostly are for belmont residents because we are part of the minuteman library network which is the metro west control consortium where we do a lot of resource hearing with some of them we buy as the town of belmont based on what our patrons actually another thing that's not in the business brochure is mangled languages so you can learn another language for free from home on your phone it's a great all mobile app but yes so there's a by subject that's it morning stars it's unlimited users career transitions business insights lexis nexis oh yeah so the bloomberg business week is that's a little that's a different service that's from zero zero zero is a digital newsstand basically and so through the library your library card will grant you free subscription access to over forty magazines and video is the host for those so if you are looking for a particular article you know you go and find it but you can't just read it cover to cover and good so it's just each article is in there and source of all but for the magazines like bloomberg bloomberg business and forbes it's actually you're downloading a digital replica of the magazine and you can do things too like once you have your account with say you know email me every time the new edition is available and so you've basically got a digital subscription to coming to you either on your computer or on your tablet and you tube well so you don't even have to remember to go get it so so far everything we've talked about is computer based internet based but the dish of that we don't show regular basis so i just brought some from the new book section so we have zero to one start ups and how to build the future the best place to work the art and science of creating an extraordinary workplace those are some new titles in that section and then some older ones we have a whole business section you know we were organized by do a decimal so we definitely have like a management section so this book is called the customer rolls the thirty nine essential rules for delivering start a nonprofit done by nolo which is like a reliable and comprehensive resource so basically we prepare the two together at our online resources that you can use from home and then these books that you can come in and get you can really get a great picture of the whole business world because there's books there that address starting across a business or making money from your blog like blogging as a digital mom and how to make a profit off of basically talking about your baby  and all kinds of stuff i mean management classics with peter drucker i mentioned to you before greening your business communication skills obviously in the business world are supremum there's tons of books on communication and trying to think like just really all kinds of stuff it's amazing just just how many resources we do have in town at i know we have a very busy life or it's and you know you get so wrapped up in the day to day running of the business and so forth and you know they'd be a new book out a hot new book from somebody and you go out buy a copy of it or something but but you know i never really thought of  resources that were available at the library and i and i were thank you for the call to come in in the in the in actually this this call was this session was scheduled by joe when a colleague saying gee i'd like to come on and talk about some of the reasons