We’re working on new advocacy materials for ALIA members post-Summit and of course we wanted to see what other organisations were doing on this front. Searching the web, we’ve found lots of really great advocacy ideas and resources, ranging from heavy-duty political lobbying, through to lively consumer campaigns.
Here are a few that caught our eye:
Illinois Library Association has a 16-page document devoted to library advocacy (similar in style to the new one we’re putting together). We especially liked the section about handling tough questions – www.ila.org.
The American Library Association (www.ala.org) has a whole section on issues and advocacy, including a toolkit for advocating in a tough economy, and a link to its own public-facing website – www.ilovelibraries.org.
For school libraries, we found www.crbsls.org/slsa/, the School Library Systems of New York State website, which features the Sunflower Avalanche campaign – fun logo with a serious message attached.
From the Canadian Library Association, there’s Library Advocacy Now! www.cla.ca/divisions/capl/advocacy/, a training program for public library staff and trustees.
And www.youtube.com is a source of inspirational stories and examples of library advocacy. Keeping Your Community Connected is two years old, but still worth a look, Wow-That’s a Library starts off slowly, but warms up about halfway through, and Advocacy Keeping Libraries Open Part II, linked with www.savequeenslibrary.org is a good one to bear in mind if the unthinkable happens and one of your libraries comes under threat of closure.
OCLC’s site www.oclc.org/reports/funding/default.htm has a solid document entitled From Awareness to Funding: A Study of Library Support in America, exploring attitudes and perceptions about library funding. The company used the research to get US$5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to run a public awareness campaign, which is an admirable example of turning research into action.
The campaign is called Geek the Library www.geekthelibrary.org and it’s a fantastic site, Web 2.0 at its best.
The new ALIA advocacy materials are a work in progress, but should be up on the website in a matter of weeks. Meanwhile, the Little Book of Public Libraries has gone to press and will be arriving in the ALIA office on 13 July, ready for the Public Libraries Summit. We’ve already had requests for 20,000 copies but it’s not too late to place an order – just go to the Summit home page on this site and download the order form.
Sue McKerracher
ALIA project officer