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Advocacy




  • Advocacy, Online Collaboration, Question of the Week

    QOTW: Libraries Linked to Economic Development?

    June 24th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

    Question of the WeekAs most of you know, we run a pretty regular weekly question feature over on WebJunction.org. Most of the questions come from our discussion forums. Elevation to QOTW status comes for many reasons, but central idea is to give attention to questions that will generate community enrichment via discussion while (of course) providing an answer the original question.

    This week’s question breaks a trend by coming in through a BlogJunction comment. We’ve often pitched the blog as another place for folks to ask their WJ questions, but hardly anyone takes us up on it. Maybe along with all the other changes we’ve got going, we’re going to some new blog trends, too.

    Anyway, on with the question. RoseAleta asks:

    I’m trying to find a quote to use for a City Council presentation about how libraries contribute to economic development. It seems I’ve read this any number of times that businesses and homebuyers look for “quality of life” as much as job income, etc. in making a decision to re-locate.”

    I’m sure the WJ community is loaded with great ideas for helping RoseAleta (and if you aren’t I’d love to hear that, too. Maybe we can get together and commission a report!). I know my library adds a huge value to the community, but you can’t quote me because I’m not running a multinational corporation.

    If you’ve have thoughts to share on the matter, please respond to the question in the WebJunction advocacy discussion forum or here in the blog.

  • Advocacy, Trustees

    Trustee Tips: Serving your community. If you don’t measure it, you can’t grade it!

    May 30th, 2008 | Permalink | 1 Comment

    by Patricia H. Fisher

    Pat FisherLibrary boards and the library director are responsible for seeing that community needs are addressed by providing library services that are well-planned and that fulfill the library’s half of the social contract—making a difference in stakeholders’ lives in return for taxpayer funding. It’s in the job description!

    But how to go about it?

    Start with a “Give ‘Em What They Want!” philosophy

    • Conduct a community needs assessment as the first step in periodic strategic and market planning.
    • Focus on programs and services which meet community needs.
    • Write program or service goals as statements of benefits that members of the community will receive.
    • State the objectives, which are measurements that will be used to determine the progress made toward the goals.

    Measurements

    One way of measuring is to have “benchmarks,” which are sometimes called “standards,” for comparisons. Georgia has operating and primary standards, to evaluate its public libraries. The standards describe essential, full and optimal levels of service in enough narrative detail to allow boards and directors to determine where their libraries fall on the continuum. (more…)

  • Advocacy, Leg Day

    Library Legislative Day: What to Know Before You Participate

    April 17th, 2008 | Permalink | 3 Comments

    ALA Legislative Day WebinarI attended a webinar presented by ALA’s Washington office yesterday. The presenter was advocacy “guru” Stephanie Vance, and she shared some excellent ways library staff can not only prepare for Library Legislative Day on May 13 and 14, but also prepare for other other advocacy efforts at any level of government.

    I’ll outline here some of the highlights of the webinar. Vance covered five planning steps for National Legislative Day.

    Step #1: create a one-pager about your library

    • highlights your library’s programs and resources that you provide to their constituents
    • library funding, especially if highlights a federal partnership
    • outline how congress can help your library

    (more…)

  • Advocacy, Celebrations, Recognition

    National Library Week: Happy Library Workers Day

    April 14th, 2008 | Permalink | 1 Comment

    National Library Week: Library Workers DayTuesday is National Library Workers Day!

    You’ll get no argument from me on the the premise of this campaign: “Libraries Work Because We Do.” I love my library and all my library friends and invite you to pat your co-workers, friends, employees, or (even yourself) on the back today.

    If you have an library appreciation /awareness event in the works, we’d love to hear about it. If you don’t, well, never fear; ALA/APA has your back with some quick celebration ideas. While you are on their site, take a gander at the map of library stars. You may find someone you know.

    Finally, don’t forget to share your plans for this and other events you are running during National Library Week! We’d love it if you’d share your thoughts in the blog or our Library Week discussion in the WebJunction community forums.

  • Advocacy, Library Services, Online Collaboration

    Kicking Off the Big Five-O For National Library Week

    April 11th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

    As I’m sure all of you are aware, next week is the 50th anniversary National Library Week. In addition to the personal, local events that many of you are planning (and please let us know about them in the comments!), ALA and others in our community have delivered a bookmobile full of celebratory happenings for the week.

    I’ll highlight specific resources and activities later in the post, but right now I’ve got to tell you how excited I am about the wacky-good promotional Library Week videos you can download from the AL Focus site.

    These videos turn normally stale library stats (”Reference librarians in the nation’s public and academic libraries answer more than 7.2 million questions weekly“) on their ear. I mean, where else are you going to find a video campaign that combines romance novels and vending machines, brings literature and Johnny Depp to the McDonalds Drive-in window, stumps viewers with the really important reference questions, and takes them inside a high-stakes game of ID-card Go Fish.Genius! (more…)

  • Advocacy, Teens

    Tune-In: Teen Tech Week 2008 is Here

    February 29th, 2008 | Permalink | Comment?

    Teen Tech Week 2008

    We’re on the cusp of the second annual YALSA Teen Tech week. The program encourages teens to “tune-in” and use their local library as the place they can become competent and ethical users of technologies ranging from research databases to DVD authoring to music downloads.

    We’ve started a discussion thread to help the WJ community to share creative ideas for activities, promotions, and events. Come to think of it, this is also a great place for procrastinators (we know who we are) to harvest compelling, last-minute programming ideas.

    As part of next week’s event, YALSA is conducting a two-phase survey to learn more about how teens access and use technology, including social networking sites; one bonus outcome of the week should mean a better understanding of teen technology habits and skills for all of us.

    As always, we encourage you to post your ideas and experience (and images!) here and in the forums. Here are a few resources to get you started:

    We look forward to hearing about your plans and experiences!

  • Advocacy, Rural and Small Libraries, Webinar

    Everyday Library Advocacy Webinar

    November 28th, 2007 | Permalink | Comment?

    Just a reminder that the state of Wyoming and everyday library advocacy will be the main attraction of our Rural In-Focus Webinar tomorrow at 11 am Pacific/ 1 pm Central. Please join us for this free, one-hour session on how you can turn your customer service policy, internal and external communication plans, and networking agenda into advocacy tools that work for you everyday of the year.

  • Information on this Webinar and archives of all Rural In-Focus Webinars
  • Instructions for Joining the Webinar

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