If you choose to license your product, you can often find every major manufacturer of your category of invention in those directories. If, instead, you choose to manufacture your product yourself, these directories often list distributors and sales representatives who work in your sector of the market. Either direction you choose to go, the trade directories are an extremely valuable free resource of information in one neat, tidy location. They can literally save you hours or days of time spent attempting to locate your potential customer, a manufacturer who might be interested in licensing your invention.

With the advent of the Internet, the information you are able to access through your local library expanded  exponentially. Now, if a book on a particular subject is available at any library, it is available to you. You simply submit a request and the library will have the book sent to your local library for you to pick up. Inter-library loans are now quite common. Libraries now have large collections of “how-to” videos. Check it out! You may find instructions on how do the very things you need. For example, they may have videos that show you how to make plastic molds, or how to solder, etc.