The Invisible Industry: Resources for Supporting Cannabis Entrepreneurs (Entrepreneurship & Libraries Conference 2021)

Abstract

Column introduction Business librarians need to be nimble to discover and document new industries and services that our students are seeking. While we have focused historically on new innovations (location-based services, fintech, etc.), an equally important element is learning about recently legalized industries. This latter group would definitely include the quickly growing (no pun intended) cannabis industry. Steven Cramer, Morgan Ritchie-Baum and Andrea Levandowski share this report from a great workshop hosted as part of the Entrepreneurship & Libraries Conference, which brings together business libraries who support entrepreneurship in their schools and communities. -Corey Seeman, Column Editor About the WorkshopIn the final networking happy hour of the Entrepreneurship & Libraries Conference (ELC) 2020, attendees expressed interest in a workshop focusing on the "entrepreneurship of sin," shorthand for the growth industries of microbreweries, distilleries, and recreational marijuana. Later, the planning group of the ELC 2020 proposed the theme of "entrepreneurship, libraries, and cannabis" as a possible ELCsponsored workshop in Spring 2021. As discussed in Ritchie-Baum, Thynne, and Cramer (2021), the ELC is an official service of BLINC: Business Librarianship in North Carolina (https://nclaonline.wildapricot.org/BLINC), although the ELC planning group includes public, academic, and special librarians from across the United States and Canada. Nature of the Workshop"The Invisible Industry: Resources for Supporting Cannabis Entrepreneurs" (https://entrelib.org/schedule-at-a-glance-3/) was an online workshop hosted via Zoom on May 27, 2021. Attendance was free thanks to sponsorship by Mintel, PrivCo and EveryLibrary. A total of 259 people registered from a variety of organizations, including academic, public, and special libraries; the cannabis industry; and economic development offices. The workshop's three-and-a-half hours of programming