Entrepreneurship research guide design at Canadian university libraries

Abstract

This environmental scan reviews the entrepreneurship research guides at 17 Canadian universities to examine how librarians are prioritizing resources and resource instruction online. The research guides were evaluated on criteria such as core subject competency coverage, the use of proprietary databases versus open access resources, and the inclusion of instructional content. When comparing the subject coverage of the examined guides against the core subject competency rankings for entrepreneurship librarians (Toane & Figueiredo, Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, 23(1), 35–62, 2018), a gap was identified for certain subjects. Industry research and market research were identified as top priorities in both cases, but international business research was given a low core subject competency ranking yet it was the only subject covered by all examined guides. This research will inform entrepreneurship librarians on the subject coverage of entrepreneurship guides from other institutions in order to identify gaps in their online coverage of topics and make improvements to their own guides.

Keywords:

• Academic libraries
• core competencies
• entrepreneurship
• guide design
• research guides