For thousands of Gold Coast business owners and employees, this week has brought financial instability, uncertainty of the future and isolation at home for an unknown period of time as the Federal Government imposed social isolation measures in the wake of COVID-19, requiring hotels and pubs, entertainment venues and cinemas, casinos and nightclubs to close and cafes and restaurants to move to take-away only services resulting in mass unemployment, underemployment and business closures.
Non-essential services have also closed down with council libraries closing the doors to their buildings, however, for anyone with a library card, you can still access a variety of online services from your local library that will not only make self-isolation more bearable it could also help you to up-skill or even launch your online business idea in your downtime.
If you have a library card, you can access to a great range of online business resources full of authoritative and credible information you cannot source through Internet search engines. Here are a few of FREE activities that you can do online as a library member.
Strategise and Research
You can access thousands of international research reports and journals as well as hundreds of Australian and New Zealand newspapers and magazines – ideal for market and industry research if you are looking to launch a new business or adapt your existing business to meet the needs of the new online and socially distanced world we are now part of.
ABI/Inform provides thousands of full-text journals, dissertations, working papers, key business and economics periodicals such as The Economist and Sloan Management Review, country-and industry-focused reports, and major news sources like the Wall Street Journal. Its international coverage gives researchers a complete picture of companies and business trends around the world.
The ANZ Reference Centre brings together the largest collection of Australian and New Zealand newspapers and magazines including the Australian Financial Review, Gold Coast Bulletin, Marketing Bulletin, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Login with your library card via the City of Gold Coast website.
Take a course in design, marketing, web development and more
Normally $29.99 per month, library card holders have free and complete access to every course on Lynda.com (also known as LinkedIn Learning). There are over 14,000 courses available on a massive range of topics from online marketing to team management, programming to UX design, there are software specific courses and even learning journeys that you can take if you really want to develop strong skills in a specific field like SEO for example.
Login with your library card via the City of Gold Coast website.
Lay back and learn with an audiobook or ebook
If you don’t feel like taking a full course but still want to learn and grow, the Libby App gives you access to thousands of ebooks and audiobooks for free. If money is tight – ditch your kindle and your audiobooks and audible subscriptions and use Libby instead.
You can check out some of our CEO’s top listens/reads here.
Don’t have a library card? Check out the startup resources page for other resources you can access to startup and grow your business. For hands on help and support – join our virtual community to connect with mentors, industry partners and other entrepreneurs via our online portal.
