Groddföretagens vägar till information. En studie hur Chalmers Tekniska Högskolas Bibliotek används som informationsresurs av tio groddföretag på Chalmers Innovation.
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the information need of the incubators that comes from Chalmers University of Technology and are situated at Chalmers Innovation. It is also of interest to investigate how Chalmers University Library covers this information need. The investigation was carried out using qualitative interviews with representatives of the incubators. They were asked questions about the perceived need of information and which type of contacts they had with the library. The result is that the incubators feel that there is a great need for business information that is hard to find. Most companies try to fulfil this need by searching the Internet via ordinary search engines or searching in databases at the library. Since almost all of the investigated companies emanate from Chalmers University of Technology, they did not find it as a problem to keep them updated on technical issues. The majority of the companies used Internet and personal contacts to keep them updated on technical issues. For basic technical information, such as needed for entering a new field, they often used the University library. None of the investigated companies was aware of the possibility to give search questions to the library. They have not got any information of what services the library could provide. This is a question that I feel need to be addressed. It should be possible to improve the co-operation between the incubators and the library for the benefit of both parties.