Category Archives: Advocacy

Advocacy, CMLE, Communication, Programs

Two Upcoming CMLE Social Events!

There are so many reasons September is great: back to school, pumpkin spice lattes, and TWO opportunities for you to connect with other awesome library folks! We want to meet in different places, so we can try out new things, and we can be closer to different members at different times.

On Tuesday, September 25th, we’ll be having a Postcard Party in the Park! Join us at Munsinger Gardens in St. Cloud from 11-1pm and let’s do some library advocacy! We provide postcards and postage, along with sample text, and we write to our legislators and local decision makers to urge them to support all types of libraries.

 

And on Sunday, September 30th, we’re doing something a little extra special: having tea! Join us at the Mad Hatter Restaurant, in Anoka at 10:30am. We do ask that you RSVP if you plan to join us for this event. We’ll talk libraries, hear about summer adventures, and enjoy delicious refreshments!

 

We hope to see you at one or both of our events. One of our goals as a multitype system is to connect members of the library community with each other, to network and share ideas and challenges. We can’t wait to see you!

Advocacy, Programs

Advocate for libraries at our Postcard Party

Our next library advocacy Postcard Party will be on Tuesday, September 25th from 11-1 (feel free to come a little early, or stay a little late, we’re flexible!) We will be having a lunchtime Postcard Party at the lovely Munsinger Gardens in St. Cloud.

Why do we hold these events? School, public, academic, special libraries and archives all serve important roles and assist their communities in different ways. Libraries deserve funding and support, so let’s spread that message!

For this postcard party we are focusing on local officials and decision makers. That means school boards, city council members, principals, and more. We will again provide library advocacy postcards, postage, and yummy snacks to fuel your advocacy efforts! If you are unsure of the identity of your local officials, do some research beforehand otherwise we’re happy to help you out.

Hope to see you there!

Advocacy

Advocacy Alchemy: #LibrariesTransform

It’s time for Advocacy Alchemy!!

Each week we will share one tip – usually something simple and easy to do – that will help you build your advocacy skills. Why Alchemy? Because libraries are wonderful and not enough people know about the breadth and depth of library work. When we mix together all the different small things we are doing to advocate, the result in library support will be worth its weight in gold!

To be a good member of the library profession you need to be advocating for yourself, for your organization, and for your profession. It does not matter one single bit what job you have, what your training in libraries may be, or what kind of library you are in. If you are in a library, we want to help you advocate!

You can implement each tip as it comes out, or feel free to browse back through these tips to help build up your skills and help your library!

This week we have a really easy Advocacy idea. Each day this week, share a quick, cute story on Twitter or Facebook that shows what your library can do for the community. Stick on the #LibrariesTransform, so your stuff can be seen in the bigger conversation!

Did you help someone print a resume? Did you find the right book for a school project? Did a teeny kid hug you? Did you crawl under the shelves to retrieve a lost puppet? Did you make glitter-covered art projects (that will never come out of the carpet)? Did someone smile at you? Did someone say thank you? Did you triumphantly help a crabby person even though they were crabby? Did you buy and/or read a new book? Did you learn a new tech skill? Was someone amazed about a thing/material/program in your library?

Some weeks you change people’s entire lives. Some weeks you are covered in craft project leftovers. And some weeks you survive long enough to go home and eat cookies for dinner.

Whatever happened in YOUR library is special! It’s unique to you! And YOU are the only one who can give your perspective!

With all advocacy work, it’s always the same. You just have us; we just have you. If we don’t all talk and share our stories – we will all lose out on the possibilities of achieving the things our libraries COULD do for the community.

LET’S HEAR IT FROM YOU!!

(Bonus points will be awarded to glitter-bomb -level disasters in your library this week! Resilience in the face of disaster is always cool!!!)

Advocacy

Advocacy Alchemy: Find out where candidates stand on library issues before the election

Each week we will share one tip – usually something simple and easy to do – that will help you build your advocacy skills. Why Alchemy? Because libraries are wonderful and not enough people know about the breadth and depth of library work. When we mix together all the different small things we are doing to advocate, the result in library support will be worth its weight in gold!

To be a good member of the library profession you need to be advocating for yourself, for your organization, and for your profession. It does not matter one single bit what job you have, what your training in libraries may be, or what kind of library you are in. If you are in a library, we want to help you advocate!

This week we are sharing this article from District Dispatch all about effective advocating for libraries before an election takes place. The author lives in Maryland and before their primary election, he reached out to candidates running for office to find out where they stood on issues related to libraries. This author specifically mentions public libraries, but you can edit the language to include the type of library you work in. (You can read the full article to see the email he sent to the candidates). He heard back from a good number of them and recorded their responses. Based on his results, he also came up with some ideas to improve this process in the future.

The author offers these words of advice:

“No matter how we as librarians approach candidates, keep two goals in mind: alerting them to the constituency for public libraries, and electing officials who will be sympathetic to our concerns. That way, when it’s time to approach them about funding and policy decisions, we’ll know where they stand, and we’ll be able to anticipate how they’ll respond.”

Check out the full article here.

Advocacy

Advocacy Alchemy: Reach out to one person

It’s time for Advocacy Alchemy!!

Each week we will share one tip – usually something simple and easy to do – that will help you build your advocacy skills. Why Alchemy? Because libraries are wonderful and not enough people know about the breadth and depth of library work. When we mix together all the different small things we are doing to advocate, the result in library support will be worth its weight in gold!

To be a good member of the library profession you need to be advocating for yourself, for your organization, and for your profession. It does not matter one single bit what job you have, what your training in libraries may be, or what kind of library you are in. If you are in a library, we want to help you advocate!

You can implement each tip as it comes out, or feel free to browse back through these tips to help build up your skills and help your library!

This week we have a very simple advocacy task.

Go find someone who does not use a library – any type of library, or just your type of library. Tell them about a cool/wonderful/fun/exciting thing happening in your library. It can be a program, a service, materials – anything. Just go tell them.

It’s so simple, it feels like nothing. But literally, everything you do to help spread the word about libraries, and the cool stuff we have there, is good.

And when we all go out this week and talk to one person who doesn’t usually use the library, and tell them about a neat thing in the library? Well – that’s just going to be a wonderful bouquet of new people who know about library stuff!

Use #LibrariesTransform across social media, and share this week’s advocacy success!