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While public libraries are commonly perceived in their role of providing access to books, many urban public libraries are finding new ways to contribute to local economic growth through services to entrepreneurs and small business owners. This paper explores the unique audiences that public libraries can reach, the assets they provide, explorations into the entrepreneurship ecosystem, and two case studies of library systems. Public libraries provide economic benefits through their physical buildings, economic mobility programmes and services, particularly their workforce development offerings. Building on this, targeted business outreach to entrepreneurs creates a new opportunity for economic impact. As inventoried by public library staff, libraries provide physical space, technology and equipment, training and education and research service assets to local entrepreneurs. The two case studies of urban public libraries in the US, Mid-Continent Public Library, Missouri and Spokane Public Library (SPL), Washington, show different service models to entrepreneurs and business owners and aligned partners. As public libraries continue to evolve their service models in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are additional opportunities for the library to contribute to their local economic recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing trend toward a consolidation of services for electronic resources management, A–Z journal listings, full text link resolving, and discovery services under a single service provider. In many cases, the adoption of a discovery service from a provider that is not the same as the libraries’ existing link resolver service means managing multiple knowledgebases. In this session, three librarians gave an overview of their experiences and strategies for maintaining separate link resolving and discovery services in lieu of adopting a full suite of services from a single service provider. Each speaker presented a case study on the advantages and challenges of managing their chosen discovery service: EBSCO Discovery Service, Ex Libris’ Primo and ProQuest’s Summon, in conjunction with the CUFTS/GODOT open source knowledgebase and link resolver service. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Public homeless shelters are at the center of a strategy for neoliberal urban development in Washington, D.C. City-level policymakers have sought to sell public property to developers who will convert the sites into luxury condos and boutique hotels, but the implementation of this policy has not been smooth. To understand the third-wave gentrification strategy of public property disposal, I argue that it is necessary to pay attention to the interruptions, exceptions, and stalled attempts at policymaking, which I call policyfailing. I contend that the growing critical policy literature on mobilities and mutations is keenly positioned to contribute to a research agenda about how policies fail to take hold evenly across space and time. Using the under-examined subject of public property disposal as an empirical vehicle, I examine some of the institutional mechanisms, ideologies, mobilizations, and regulatory practices through which public property disposal has worked in Washington, D.C. and, subsequently, how a different set of forces have created instances of policyfailing. I ultimately demonstrate how the concept of policyfailing can help geographers understand governance and its relationship to uneven development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]