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Enterprising Libraries

Key information

This fund encouraged libraries to use their role as community hubs to spark local economic growth and improve social mobility.

Status

Closed


Funding activity

Capacity building, participation.


Total fund

Ten projects were awarded an equal share of the £450,000 fund.


Eligibility

Public libraries, public library authorities, networks of public library authorities or organisations managing a public library authority.


Key dates

Funds were awarded for activity taking place between September 2013 and March 2015.

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About the fund

This programme was supported by the Arts Council as part of our Libraries of the future strand: ‘Libraries as the hub of the community’.

The first stage of the Enterprising Libraries programme saw the British Library, in partnership with the UK Intellectual Property Office, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Arts Council, working with six core city libraries in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool and Newcastle. They established a co-branded network of Business and Intellectual Property (IP) Centres to support the government’s innovation-driven growth agenda. The aim of developing these centres was to make their resources more widely available throughout the country.

The grant programme for local libraries was the second stage of the Enterprising Libraries programme. It developed partnerships between local libraries who were successful in applying for this commissioned grant and core city libraries, thereby spreading business and intellectual property expertise into wider communities.

For those libraries that received funding through the Enterprising Libraries programme, the Business and IP Centre national network  provided:

  • a core support infrastructure
  • branding and expertise around, for example, database licenses
  • international and national company information
  • provision of networking areas
  • webinars
  • masterclasses

Announced in March 2015, the second stage was additional funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Arts Council. This additional £400,000 aimed to support the British Library’s ambition of transforming UK city libraries into hubs for small businesses and entrepreneurs. The British Library also made a contribution of £253,000 in cash and non-cash resources.

A child takes part in an art project at Deptford Lounge Library.
Photo by Participants at Deptford Lounge Library. Photo © Michael Cameron Photography.
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Photo © Michael Cameron Photography
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Outcomes

The funding provided a boost to enterprise in Exeter and Northamptonshire, enabling Exeter Central Library and Northamptonshire Libraries to pilot a Business & IP Centre service to support local entrepreneurs.

It also enabled the British Library to consolidate the network of Business & IP Centres already operational in six cities across the UK, and reinforce the important work the centres do to engage local Black and minority ethnic communities and disadvantaged groups in innovation and entrepreneurship.

The success of the British Library’s own Business & IP Centre service is evidence that libraries have an important role to play in helping businesses to innovate and grow: the London Centre has helped to create 2,775 businesses and an additional 3,345 jobs in new and existing businesses in the period 2005-12. Overall, these businesses increased their turnover by £153 million, which in turn made a gross value added contribution of £47.1 million to London’s economy.

Libraries also have a strong record of attracting users from a wide range of backgrounds; an estimated 41 per cent of Enterprising Libraries participants are women, 38 per cent are from Black and minority ethnic groups and 10 per cent are currently unemployed.

In the six Business & IP Centres already open around the UK (in NewcastleBirminghamLeedsManchester, Liverpool and Sheffield), local entrepreneurs can receive face-to-face advice and training on how to start, protect or grow their business, and can access market research databases and other information out of reach for most small and medium-sized enterprises.

Libraries are an important part of all our lives, bringing communities together and also providing a vital hub for knowledge and information exchange. The success of the Business & IP Centres illustrates their important role in providing business support to those communities.

Read the blog from our Chief Executive, Darren Henley, about his night at the British Library’s Enterprising Libraries event, his love of libraries, and how the Arts Council is investing in their future. 

Read the blog >

A photograph of people working taken from the balcony of The British Library's Business & IP Centre.
Photo by The British Library's Business & IP Centre. Photo © Tom Pilston.
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The British Library's Business & IP Centre. Photo © Tom Pilston
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Successful applicants

The successful projects to receive this funding in 2013 were:

Cultural Community Solution, London

Devon Libraries

Haringey Libraries, Archives and Museum Service

Hull City Council library service

London Borough of Enfield

Greater Manchester Libraries

Middlesbrough Libraries

Norfolk Library and Information Service

Northamptonshire Libraries

Portsmouth Central Library


The value of libraries

Understand the contribution public libraries can make at an economic level and to health and wellbeing.

Read the evidence >

Young child and father in library
Photo by Liverpool Library. Photo © Graham Lucas Commons
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Liverpool Library. Photo © Graham Lucas Commons
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