Trust, Public Libraries
I really should round up some research on this (or the great library blog reading community could contribute ideas, if you have them) but my gut tells me that the business community trusts the library. Not just to do research and return reasonable results to their questions, but also in sharing information with us. Case in point: Just yesterday I was doing some research for a local banker who wanted to know what the competition was offering in terms of "analysis" or "analyzed" business banking accounts. She only wanted the information from four other institutions so I told her I would call around on her behalf. When I called up the competing banks and told them that I was doing research for a patron and needed to know the fee structure for their analyzed accounts, they were more than willing to help out. I think that if I had called and said something like "Hi. I'm calling from a competitor of yours and I need you to take some time out of your day to d...