Re-conceiving Entrepreneurship for Libraries: Collaboration and the Anatomy of a Conference

For librarians who have worked in the field and have become innovative out of necessity, developing and creating entrepreneurial activities are not unusual. Perhaps recognizing and celebrating those achievements could change common perspectives on the entrepreneurial abilities of librarians. This idea launched the collaborative efforts of two universities to demonstrate this to be so. The libraries at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, successfully collaborated on the planning and execution of a conference to celebrate entrepreneurism within the field of librarianship. In doing so, each organization was able to promote its unique talents and give signature to the notion that librarians can be, and in fact are, entrepreneurial. The collaborative value found in this project was derived from our sense of fulfillment of our social responsibility and of celebrating entrepreneurship within the profession. This conference serves as an example of embedded collaboration versus simple logistics, and the conference planning team now looks forward to future endeavors.