The Blackstone LaunchPad is Syracuse University’s innovation hub, connecting the campus ecosystem with a global network that supports innovators, entrepreneurs and creatives. The LaunchPad Entrepreneurship Book Collection is a crowdsourced collection of titles on multidisciplinary topics related to innovation and entrepreneurship. The collection is based on suggestions made by faculty, staff, and students across many academic programs and disciplines at Syracuse University.
The collection continues to grow every year, and certain titles have been adopted as suggested reading by faculty teaching entrepreneurship and related subjects. Many of the print books in this collection are located on the shelves just outside the LaunchPad, some books are located in other parts of Bird Library, and ebook versions are available to read from anywhere.
The specialized Blackstone LaunchPad Entrepreneurship Book Collection is a small subcollection of the many entrepreneurship and innovation related books available via Syracuse University Libraries. Entrepreneurship and innovation books beyond the ones listed here may be found by searching in Summon and the Classic Catalog.
Lists include both the print and ebook versions (if available) of each title.
Note: The book descriptions are based on publisher-provided descriptions. While we have edited some descriptions for length, spelling and grammatical errors, as well as tall claims such as, "the only business book you will ever need," we found this to be a labor-intensive process and so will not be able to edit all the descriptions.
The Business Information Guide and the Business & Entrepreneurship Databases List serve as starting points for entrepreneurship and business research.
When working towards contributing to a more just, equitable, and inclusive society, entrepreneurs should consider perspectives from inside and outside the business realm. The Equity, Diversity, Accessibility, and Inclusion guide and the Resources for Racial Justice guide serve as starting points for learning more about equity, diversity, accessibility, inclusion, and anti-racism.
The Blackstone LaunchPad Entrepreneurship Book Collection started with a core list of titles frequently recommended by Blackstone LaunchPad Founder Linda Dickerson Hartsock to aspiring student entrepreneurs. Linda then crowdsourced book suggestions on multidisciplinary topics related to innovation and entrepreneurship from faculty, staff, and students across many academic programs and disciplines. Librarian for Business, Management, and Entrepreneurship Steph McReynolds selected (and continues to select) relevant titles for the collection as well. Early on in its creation, the idea for the collection won the Judges’ Prize at the inaugural Charleston Conference Fast Pitch Competition, an international gathering of librarians, publishers, electronic resource managers and vendors of library materials.
Many thanks to former Syracuse University Libraries' Research Reputation Graduate Assistant Ashley N. Downs for transforming the PDF title and author version of this list into a dynamic guide featuring book covers, book descriptions, links to each book's catalog record and ebook version (when available), as well as for arranging the over 300 book titles into easy-to-browse subject lists.