Small Business Reference Center features PDF full text titles from Nolo (the leader in plain English legal books).  You will be able to read and save to your computer PDF Nolo titles such as How to Write a Businesss Plan, Legal Guide for Starting and Running a Small Business, Nolo's Quick LLC, and more.  In addition, you can watch "lessons learned" and "how to" videos all about starting or growing a business. Check out this great resource available online with your SJPL library card.

Venture Café Entrepreneurism Workshop Series: Join us for a 5 part series promoting the spirit of entrepreneurship culture and building a community of entrepreneurs. Expert presenters followed with a question and answer period, time for lunch and networking afterwards. Live Webinar. Lunch will be provided.  This event will be held at the Santa Teresa Branch Library from 10:30 AM- 1:00 PM, Saturdays, April 30, May 7, May 21, May 28, and June 4.  Registration is recommended, please call 408-808-3068 to register and for more information.

You know that soundbite you hear in the news that "the approval rating for the President has gone up 2 percent." Well, chances are the source of those stats comes from the Pew Research Center. This group-described "fact tank" is non-profit and non-partisan. The Pew Research Center not only does public opinion polling about Presidential approval ratings but other polls and social science research. How can information from Pew Research Center help me? Well, you can find out technology, lifestyle, religious, social, and demographic trends. This is a great resource for new and existing business owners to stay up on the latest trends and what consumers are doing, not to mention data for business plans. Dig around their website, there is a lot of interesting information, especially since the Center has seven different research projects.

Small Business Development Centers or SBDC's are located throughout the state and nationally. SBDC's can help you start, manage, and grow your business. We are lucky that we have a SBDC right here in San José. The Silicon Valley SBDC offers many free services including help with business and marketing plans and one on one consulting. So if you are a new business owner or an already established owner looking for some guidance, SBDC can help.

What is the Weekly Register of New Accounts? Well, it's a list that the City of San José puts together weekly of all the businesses that have registered for a business tax license. The Weekly Register of New Accounts contains the business name, owner(s), business and mailing address, phone number, type of business, and NAICS code. Why would someone want to see this list? Well, folks use it for business/sales leads. For example, perhaps you are a salesperson for copy machines and need to find some new clients. The new businesses on this list would be a good target audience for you to market or sell your product. A new list generally comes out on Mondays. You can view this list at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 2nd Floor.  If you wanted to buy your own copy of the list; the City charges a fee for a copy but we have a copy available for viewing.

We have a Value Line trial going on right now. As some of you know Value Line is a great resource for investors. We are considering purchasing this resource but we need to know if you all prefer Value Line or the other comparable investor resource, Morningstar.

We have two trials of Value Line:

1. Value Line Investment Survey- Covers about 135 stocks in seven or eight industries every week. It includes index information on Dow Jones, S&P, CBOE, Russell, and NYSE.

2. Value Line Research Center- Includes access to various publications covering stocks, mutual funds, options and convertible securities as well as special situation stocks.

You can get access to Value Line and Morningstar trial here http://sjpl.org/databases#Busi

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