Salvatore DiVincenzo - Supporting Local Businesses and Entrepreneurs in the Digital Age

Supporting Local
Businesses and
Entrepreneurs in
the Digital Age

The Public
Librarians Toolkit

Salvatore DiVincenzo
and Elizabeth Malafi

Copyright 2017 by Salvatore DiVincenzo and Elizabeth Malafi

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: DiVincenzo, Salvatore, author. | Malafi, Elizabeth, author.

Title: Supporting local businesses and entrepreneurs in the digital age : thepublic librarians toolkit / Salvatore DiVincenzo and Elizabeth Malafi.

Description: Santa Barbara, California : Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017018087 (print) | LCCN 2017034235 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440851520 (paperback) | ISBN 9781440851537 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Libraries and businessUnited States. | Libraries and businessUnited StatesCase studies. | BusinessComputer network resources. | BusinessBibliography.

Classification: LCC Z711.75 .D58 2017 (print) | LCC Z711.75 (ebook) | DDC 021.2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017018087

ISBN: 9781440851520
EISBN: 9781440851537

21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available as an eBook.

Libraries Unlimited
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC
130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911
Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
www.abc-clio.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

We know what you are thinking: who the heck are these two and why are they writing a book about business librarianship? Here are our stories.

I never had an intention of becoming a librarian, by any stretch of the imagination. Quite frankly, doing what I do now, 10 years in, is still somewhat alien to me. Its also the first time that Ive been focused in what I do career-wise. Like most high school students growing up on Long Island, when I was 16, I got a job as maintenance associate at Leewards (now known as the retail craft mega chain Michaels). It wasnt difficult worksweeping glitter and errant glue sticks from the floor, stocking out bushels of eucalyptus leaves, and my favorite: planograms. Perhaps this was my first foray into the world of librarianship, or rather, organizing things like a librarian would. Wed get a picture of how the shelf should look, along with a box of labels, all the hardware, and boxes of merchandise to fill each spot. There was something incredibly satisfying for me to start off with a blank six-foot section of aisle space and transform it into something sellable.

As my time at Leewards progressed, I moved from cashier, to senior cashier, to custom picture framer, to frame shop manager. This was my first foray into management and business. I supervised four picture framers and had to work on schedules, budgeting, ordering, and so on. While the frame shop was part of the overall retail operation of the store, it was very much treated as its own entity, one of the reasons being we had big, single sale transactions compared to the rest of the store. (The average transaction was usually over $100.) This gave me a little more flexibility in what I did in the shop in terms of marketing, organizing the workflow, and training. In many ways, it was like running my own business.

After a couple of years, I felt the itch of moving on to something more challenging. So I jumped at the chance of working for an interactive marketing firm in the heart of New York City. Complete and utter culture shock. Going from my relatively sleepy-town neighborhoods retail operation to commuting two hours a day to the hustle and bustle of midtown Manhattan and, for me, working with high-energy professionals was an incredible experience. My supervisor lived in a mansion; he had dinner plans with the heads of record labels and television channels. Suits and ties. Lunch meetings. I learned what the term corporate culture meant.

Before I knew it, I was courted by one of the department heads to leave with her and go to another company, this time downtown. Another corporate culture, this time more like you hear they have at Google and Facebook. Free pizza every Friday afternoon and unlimited soft drinks all day! There was no such thing as casual Fridays there; it was casual everyday: jeans and t-shirts. Regardless of the look and feel of the place, I sat in meetings with executives from Coca-Cola, John Deere, and Gateway Computers.

At the same time, I started my own consulting and website design business. One of my clients turned out to be my local library. I ended up redesigning their website as well as doing some adult and teen programming. It was my first experience working in a library, and it eventually ended up being my in.

The commute was too much for me. I had spent most of my day on a train and most of my nights worrying about catching the aforementioned train the next day. I escaped New York City and found a job at a very small, family-owned software company close to home. There I was able to see another side of business, the one that I now deal with regularly: people with great ideas but not a huge amount of money. We did our best to grow, and I was able to scale some of my New York City experiences to this company. The company ended up moving to Arizona, and I went with them. Unfortunately, their New York success did not translate to Arizona success. One day my boss gave me some money for groceries and said he hoped to get me my paycheck soon. Unable to guarantee a regular paycheck every week, I returned to home to New York where I could live rent free for a while without a job. I was out of work for six months, constantly interviewing and searching for something, experiencing unemployment for the first time. I was living the talent transition life, and looking back at it now, it was an experience that I still relate to today when a patron who is looking for a job comes in to use our services.

Finally good luck came to me, and I was pursued by a former colleague for a position in retail management, which I gladly accepted. While it was fantastic to be working again, it wasnt exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life; but it was a great experience nonetheless. I was able to build my customer service skills, use my marketing background to come up with promotional materials, and use my technical background to streamline our in-store order-taking process. Just when I was ready to consider moving on to something else, another change came: after three years, the corporate office was closing my location. Not wanting to let me go, I was moved to a sales position for the company at their corporate office. Again, another angle in the business world: this time I was cold calling clients and perfecting my sales pitch. It wasnt quite my cup of tea. Frankly, it was torturous. I was uncomfortable with what I was doing every day. I wanted out, and I had to get out and find not a job, but a career. When the assistant director of the library I had been consulting for mentioned in passing that I should think about becoming a librarian, I took it as a sign. That was 10 years ago.