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entrepreneurs who wish to widen their horizon in relation to their
business endeavors. Kuratko (2005) stated that three major sources of
information supply the data related to the entrepreneurial process or
perspective, namely: research- based source, direct observation of
practicing entrepreneurs, and speeches and presentations (including
seminars) by practicing entrepreneurs.
It therefore, becomes the duty of information professionals to
provide these research-based sources both in print and non-print format
to potential and prospective entrepreneurs. Examples of these resources
are: Academic journals, textbooks on entrepreneurship, Books about
entrepreneurship, biographies or autobiographies or entrepreneurs,
compendiums about entrepreneurs, news periodicals, venture
periodicals, newsletters, proceedings of conferences, government
publications. As the name sounds, an information professional is
someone who specializes in information collection, organization, storage
and dissemination of such information. The stated tasks can be done free
of charge or by fee, depending on the situation surround ding the
information pursuit. For instance in public, special or academic library,
an information professional provides information to users free of charge,
but is paid indirectly for his services by the government or the employer
in charge. In another case, an information professional is paid directly
by the person receiving the services. This is done in business centres,
whereby a person pays for services rendered immediately. In this case,
the information professional becomes an information broker. Warner ()
refers to these set of people as information entrepreneurs. Warner further
stated that:
They operate enterprises that charge fees for information-related
services and products; develop specialized libraries from scratch; clip
newspapers; compile directories; consult on everything from computers
to construction. They create archives and software, develop
vocabularies, do chores (moving, bar coding, shelf reading), help
libraries write RFPS. They index manuals and books and documents,
they organize conferences and prepare alerting services, publish books
and newsletters, retrive documents, search online, substitute for libraries
who have babies. They teach. They travel as couriers. They write
abstracts, they write computer instruction manuals (p.279)
All these efforts put together bring about individual and national
development in the sense that information, being a crucial factor in
national development, is acquired by entrepreneurs who gain access to