Category Archives: Advocacy

Advocacy

Advocacy Alchemy: What’s possible in your library???

You know that we love your library just as it is. We love to visit member libraries, and to ooooh and aaaaaahhhh over the things you are doing!!!

And it’s good to keep moving things forward, to shake things up a little bit, to try some new things, offer new materials. Your community will keep changing around you, and we all need to work to keep up.

Yeah,  I know. I’m kind of a little old lady – it’s increasingly a challenge to keep up with those whippersnappers today. But totally worth the effort!!!

Libraries pretty much do three things: materials, programs, and services. All libraries, all archives – we all do have these things. It’s the way you implement it that makes you special!

You don’t have to do everything.

You don’t have to follow every single new trend.

You don’t even have to get it all right!

But you do have to try, and you do have to keep evolving and trying new things.

It’s hard, it can be scary. And especially when you are alone in your library, as many of our members are, it may seem a little overwhelming.

(We offer here a virtual pat of Official Office Dog Lady Grey. It’s very reassuring in times of library stress – I promise!)

CMLE is here to help our members with this! We will be happy (So Very Happy!!!) to come to your library, chat about issues, help with planning and policies, attend meetings with you as a backup person – whatever you might need.

And we want to give you money!!!

Okay, not tons of money. BUT!!! Some money!!

(If you follow us on Twitter – and you should! – you have heard me losing my mind and screaming about this!!! Twitter is worth reading, even if just to follow the possibility that I’m actually going to lose it, drive to your library, and throw money at you – as I’ve been threatening to do! #WorthIt #Possibilities)

We offer up to $300 in scholarship money. You can use this to attend conferences, sign up for webinars, get a sub to fill your hours – pretty much whatever you need to make some good progress happen. Find it all right here.

We also offer up to $300 in mini-grant money!! This was a new category last year, and it’s been so cool to read about all the things people are trying! While this is not a huge sum, it’s enough to let you buy a new thing, to go in on a bigger purchase with other money, get some new books, bring in a guest speaker, or pretty much anything else you can dream up!

(Members, come closer. I want to tell you a secret. If you just fill out the application and send it in, if you are at all in the ballpark I’m going to approve it. I’m going to give you money if you ask for it.)

(Note: it’s totally okay to pass this secret around to your friends, colleagues, people you happen to pass on a sidewalk – whoever!)

This past year, we spent way more on these budget categories than ever before – and I was so happy!!!!

Literally, at our annual audit this year the auditor thought I had messed up the budget chart – and then sat very patiently while I excitedly bragged about all the amazing things our members did with this money!!!

(He was nice about it – though maybe slightly puzzled by my effervescent joy. Can’t help it – I’m a dedicated library fan!!!)

I would LOVE it if you all worked together to make my job harder in this area!! Spend all the money!! Make me have to give detailed explanations to account for all the money we gave to members!! (I will absolutely bust out some PowerPoint slides and flow charts to share the library-based joy here – don’t think I won’t!!!!)

We have a long weekend, and hopefully everyone is filled with thanks for all sorts of things.

And I hope some of that extends to your library – and the help CMLE can give to you. I’ll be thankful if you take this money; your patrons will be happy if you get cool stuff or do new stuff for them. You will be thankful at annual review time because you can talk about how awesomely you are succeeding at your job by reaching out to your library system and to your community!

Whew!

That’s a lot of thankfulness!

So, remember: make our jobs here harder. Angie does the paperwork for these applications, and as much as I value all her hard work – I’ll be thankful to overwhelm her with more applications! I’ll also be thankful for the opportunity to tell EVERYONE about the work you are doing. It doesn’t have to be big, flashing, amazing – just try something new. Buy something new. Take a chance.

We’re here for you.

Let’s go do some neat things together!!!

Advocacy

Advocacy Alchemy: Donors Choose

You need stuff!

If you are reading this, and working in a school library/media center, you need stuff.

It doesn’t matter how much money your school has – you need more stuff for your library. And a lot of our members are in schools where there is not a bunch of extra money floating around; even when it is plentiful, it doesn’t always float toward the library.

Fortunately, there are other resources for you to use in making things wonderful!

Donors Choose is a great website that I’ve been following, and donating to, since 2007. So I can say that as a fan and a user: it’s been great!!

What is so lovely about this site?

It’s for schools, and it allows teachers and library people to tell their community – and everyone – what they need. They find something they could use to make their work with students better, do a little research into pricing, and write it up. The Donors Choose people help, and get it all up on their website.

Then people from all over the place will search the website to find projects they want to sponsor. They can search for key words that are interesting to them: books, library, technology – whatever. Or they can search for project that are in their own community. Or they can search for projects with highest economic need, those closest to the finish line, those with fewest days left.

You, as a teacher and library person, can absolutely create one of these!! It’s such a handy way to (potentially) get a project funded, and a great PR tool to show off the things you can do in your library to serve the school community.

Have you done one? Great! Do another one! (You still need stuff, after all!!)

Never done one? Never written a grant? It all sounds terrifying?? No worries – CMLE staff are here to help you!! Members can drop us an email to admin @ cmle.org, and we will bustle right over to help you. (How do you know you are a member? Are you in one of our twelve counties? Aitkin, Benton, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Pine, Sherburne, Stearns, Todd, or Wright. Yes? Then, you are a member!)

 

Try one!! Let’s get so many great things for your library!!!

Advocacy

Advocacy Alchemy: Let’s Talk!

Let’s talk!

I like to talk, especially about libraries! Hopefully you also like to talk about libraries and library stuff.

When English is your first language, and not the first language of the patron standing in front of you, it is harder to share ideas about the wonderful things we have to offer.

What can we, as library people, do to make that experience better for everyone? We can reach out!

It would be great to learn at least a few words of languages spoken by people in your community. Just making that effort can help to speed better conversation and sharing of information.It would not be too tough to find someone to translate your library card application (if you have one) into another language, or to translate at least a page of your website with some basic library info to help speed along questions and answers.

Where should you start in learning another language, or providing some basic services in addition to English? Think about the most commonly asked questions in your library, or start keeping track of questions. Start with those. Then just use some common sense about the things people would need to know.

Here are a few basics for you to translate so you can communicate and share information:

  • Hello! Even if this is your only word, you are off to a good conversational start
  • “Sorry, I don’t speak [local language]” This is surprisingly helpful, as at least the person you are working with sees that you understand how hard it is to make yourself understood in another language
  • directions to the bathroom
  • directions to the Circ desk
  • directions to the Reference desk
  • where to find a list of upcoming programs
  • library card application and process (Note: you may want to emphasize that no library will ask for a green card or social security card. We generally just need to verify addresses.)
  • days and hours you are open
  • how to sign up for a computer
  • where to find a special collection that you have advertised or promoted

You will think of other things that will be relevant to your library, and to help your community.

Consider having signs printed up all over the place in multiple languages, and some handouts at your desk with material printed out in another language. It may help promote understanding and sharing of good ideas.

It should go without saying, but in case it doesn’t: any complaints that the library should be English-only need to be shut down hard. We are a service profession, our job is to share ideas and information and our tools are materials, programs, and services. We work to serve our community members as they are, we do not demand that they conform to some arbitrary expectations some random person thought up in their heads.

 

Go look for some people to help you translate material, and find some services to help you learn some important words and phrases. You might start right at your local public library, for example! They probably have a lot of great material to help everyone hone their language skills.

(Being bilingual, or multilingual, has some great benefits for your brain too! Get in on this action, and help to preserve your brain!!)

 

Advocacy

Advocacy Alchemy: Tell a story

We push the idea that you should be out there talking about your library to candidates, elected officials, and other stakeholders.

But what are you supposed to say? That part can be kind of tough.

But it doesn’t have to be a problem. Anyone in any library has a ton of possibilities to talk about with anyone who might want to learn more about the work you are doing!

Most people have no real idea of what goes on in a library. They understand we have books, they know that public libraries read to teeny kids, but that’s about it.

Generally people will be surprised by the extensive list of things that happen in libraries:

  • overseeing compliance with federal Copyright laws for an school or other parent organization
  • teaching people how to download eBooks and audio books
  • helping both kids and adults learn about Information Literacy so they can recognize valid and reliable sources of information, and avoid online traps and lies
  • provide computer, printers, 3D printers, VR machines
  • create Maker Spaces, stocked with items as diverse as glitter and glue, markers, yarn and needles, welding torches, metal cutters, and computer software
  • set up recording booths for podcasts and video recordings, as well as teaching people how to use them

All of this kind of stuff (and So Much More!!) is available through libraries. And all of that is on top of the “everyday” stuff we provide:

  • books in all formats
  • computers – and help in learning to use a computer
  • programs for people of all ages and interests

Just that stuff would be enough to blow the minds of many people you will talk to about library work. And once you get into the specifics of what you are actually doing in your individual library – people will be amazed.

So never worry that you don’t have anything to say. Or that you are not the right person to talk about your library.

You do, and you are.

Go tell someone a library story today! And let’s try to keep them all working toward the same ending: They all lived happily, and well-funded, ever after.

 

Advocacy

Advocacy Alchemy: What do you say?

In this column, I talk a lot to encourage you to go talk to legislators, principals, stakeholders – everyone who could join in to help libraries. Go do that!!

But if you are new to advocacy, it’s hard to know what to say. Where should you start? What’s the best direction to go?

First: Don’t worry. Spreading the message about the value of libraries is the mission; specific wording is great to achieve, but not a disaster if all you manage to get out is “Libraries are so cool!”

Library advocacy, written or spoken, is pretty easy.

  • Think about what you want to say
    • what’s cool in your library? did you have a good patron experience? do you have a new tech? is your dictionary collection pretty impressive?
    • sometimes it’s specific: we need this grant, we need money for this project, we need support to make this program happen
  • Identify a stakeholder
    • this can be individuals or groups: elected officials, community groups, administration of your library’s parent organization, your Friends group
  • Hone your message so it connects with her interests
    • tell people about the stuff interesting to them; they aren’t going to necessarily going to care about everything you do, so talk about the things that specific person/group wants
  • Say it!
    • this is the most important part! say things!! don’t worry about making it perfect, it’s more important to say something than to just wallow in whatever your stakeholder might decide to do without your input!!
    • practice! keep your message concise – get out 30 to 60 seconds of material that makes your point, and be done
  • Follow up: does she have questions? need more info? super excited and wanting to give you vast sums of money????
    • too many people forget this, and it matters a lot to people who may be asked for things all the time. say thanks while you are there!

 

And of course, library advocacy people will not leave you alone, trying to figure out what you need to say! (We’re library people! We’re nice!)

You can browse this site for Minnesota Library Advocacy, and get all kinds of cool info. You will find all kinds of useful information to help you know what to say.

I especially like it the videos they created, that show you just what you can do when talking to a legislator – or any other stakeholder!

 

The most important advocacy work you can do is to just do it. Just say something.

Don’t wait around for someone else.

Don’t be too scared to speak up.

This isn’t going to be a big, brave confrontation – people will want to hear from you!

Literally, just talk with someone, send an email, write a postcard – whatever you want.