Manatee County libraries offer free business database to patrons

BRADENTON -- Infogroup built its business on gathering information about other businesses -- information members of the Manatee County Library System can now tap into.

On Monday, Infogroup government consultant Bill Carlson showed patrons at the Manatee County Central Library how to use Reference USA, one of the company's database products.

The presentation by the Nebraska-based firm was part of the library system's effort to showcase its growing list of business resources. The Central Library now offers a business incubator thanks to its recent remodeling. And librarians are encouraging Manatee County entrepreneurs and business leaders to see the library as a place to go for business resources.

"A lot of people don't associate the library system with this type of resource," said Fran Barba, reference librarian at the Central Library, 1301 Barcarrota Blvd. W. "We want to do more small business programs and we want to help small businesses or people who want to start a small business. We want them to think of the library as the first place to go."

Barba and the library staff also hope increasing business resources at the library will serve Manatee County job seekers.

Reference USA can provide instant address and background information on millions of U.S. and Canadian businesses and residences. Carlson showed a roomful of people how to use the database to call up information about businesses including phone numbers, addresses, number of employees and estimated sales volume.

Reference USA pulls information from multiple sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the White Pages to provide potential business owners or consum

ers market information. Its data stretches back to 2002 to provide a historical picture of businesses.

While many businesses use the database for marketing purposes, such as creating mailing lists, Carlson said consumers can tap into the knowledge in a variety of ways.

"If a consumer is interested in finding information about businesses they're interested in investing in or buying, or a library patron is new to the area and doesn't have any idea what the area has to offer, they can look up categories of businesses and find all of those businesses in the database in one pretty easy step," Carlson said.

Consumers can also look up how many restaurants or hotels are within a 5-mile radius from their location, or find out if their favorite shoe repair shop is publicly or privately owned. Users can then download the data in comma-separated, tab-delimited and Microsoft Excel formats.

Che Barnett, a community redevelopment coordinator for the Manatee County Neighborhood Services Department, uses the database for her daily work and attended Monday's workshop to expand her knowledge of it. She uses it to identify businesses in the Southwest TIF (tax increment financing), an area the county seeks to improve with infrastructure and more business development.

"It helps with gathering information about businesses along that corridor because it's an unincorporated area, and we don't have the business licensing like the city does," Barnett said. Though she prefers to reach out to businesses face-to-face, she said Reference USA helps as a secondary check.

"And it helps us understand the businesses better," Barnett said.

To assure the information in Reference USA is updated and accurate, Infogroup has a team of employees who call the businesses individually and verify the phone number, address, number of employees and other information. Some pieces of information, namely sales volume, aren't typically disclosed by businesses, and Infogroup has an algorithm to determine the values. It isn't exact, Carlson said, but close.

"It's as close as anyone can be without getting it straight from the horse's mouth," Carlson said.

To use Reference USA, patrons need a Manatee County Public Library System card. Library cards are free to people who live, own property, work or attend school in Manatee County. Reference USA, as well as other databases provided by the library, can be accessed from outside of the library.

Carlson will do another presentation on Infogroup's job seeker database at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Braden River Library, 4915 53rd Ave. E.

Janelle O'Dea, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7095. Follow her on Twitter @jayohday.

This story was originally published February 8, 2016 at 8:03 PM with the headline "Manatee County libraries offer free business database to patrons ."