The Open Library Project is a non-fiction book library service offered to businesses on a subscription basis. We are trying to move away from the run- of-the-mill library concept and setting up rotational and locational libraries at co-working spaces, corporates and business incubators. The idea is to create value, build a knowledge community and encourage a growth mindset amongst our members.
How it works: We set up a set of 30-50 books at offices across various categories of non-fiction which are rotated every quarter (a refundable deposit and a small monthly fee is charged from the corporate). The thought behind this is to provide industry specific curation of books. This enables a corporate to develop exactly the kind of skill set that they want to amongst their employees. So for eg. at a Finance incubator we would set up books across business, finance, management, innovation. At a design library it would be design and design thinking books.
In addition to this we also promote peer to peer learning for which we get Curators (experts/stalwarts) on board from various industries to come and share their experiences and influences with our members. We feel that one is more likely to read a book that is recommended by a person we look up to. These events are curated across many categories like art, film, cheese education, design, finance, start-ups, travel etc. We do one event a month on a premium subscription model with these corporates for value addition.
We also engage in corporate gifting of books for occasions, meetings, seminars, trainings at discounted rates.