Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Greetings from the Library of Birmingham.

This is the next posting in our series of updates from the PATLIB UK Network. This time we hear from the team at the fantastic new Library of Birmingham.


Library of Birmingham Floors by Bruce Stokes is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0







Here in Birmingham we are still overwhelmed by the number of visitors to the new library. Some are just tourists who visit the building to experience the views over the city and surrounding areas, many visit to use the internet facilities, and of course, there are those seeking business and intellectual property advice and our other services. The daily Intellectual Property Advice sessions are proving extremely popular and are usually fully booked ten days in advance. We are now offering an additional evening appointment on Fridays at 18.00.

We ran a very successful evening on the 25th February, when we hosted the Inspiring Entrepreneurs event, in conjunction with the British Library.  The live link up was preceded by a talk by local entrepreneur and TV presenter, Genelle Aldred, who provided an insight into her own personal success story and some practical advice on starting a business. Sixty seven people attended on the night and many enjoyed a networking session afterwards. Both Barclays, who sponsored the event, and Business and Learning had information stands within the networking area. We talked to a great number of people on the night, many who commented that they didn't realise that the library offered such a range of services!

We are currently planning our events to celebrate World IP Day. The day itself falls on Saturday 26th April. However, we are preparing to deliver two IP workshops on Monday 28th April. The first, focussing on ‘IP and your Business’, to cover trademarks, copyright, trade secrets and design, aimed at business start ups, the second to look at patents and patent searching. We will then offer drop in IP advice sessions in the afternoon for those with further questions. Busy times!

Malcolm Cater