At the heart: Advocacy is fun!! We get to tell people how great our libraries are, all the wonderful things we provide to our communities, and how valuable we are!! It can be tempting to just assume people know about this – but we want to really be sure they understand, so we need to tell them. This is our chance to brag!
ALA Advocacy Resources
- I Love Libraries Supporting one of our nation’s most valuable resources
- Library Advocate’s Handbook
- ALA Office for Library Advocacy
- Advocacy Resources
- EveryLibrary Any library initiative anywhere matters to every library everywhere
- How To Choose & Approach a Corporate Partner for Your Non-Profit
- Keeping Our Message Simple “Here’s the fundamentally different approach to advocacy we need to adopt—yesterday”
- Library Snapshot Day
- Open Secrets Not strictly “advocacy” but you can track how money flows in political campaigns – a powerful tool to advocate for your message!
- ROI Resources
You can get some good ideas here about how to value your services and all the great things you do in your library to serve your community!- Library Research Service An assortment of links to calculators and to articles about ROI in libraries
- Library Value Calculator This is a calculator from the ALA, developed by the Massachusetts Library Association
- Cost Benefit and ROI Calculator developed by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine
- A form for patrons to calculate the value of their libraries to them
Here is a PowerPoint presentation on Advocacy: advocacy
Some tools to find your elected officials:
- Federal
- State of Minnesota
- Governor and Executive branch: https://mn.gov/portal/government/state/governor-and-officials/
- Legislature: https://mn.gov/portal/government/state/legislature/ and https://www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/DistrictFinder
- Local officials
- Google your city’s website
- Check your school’s website for board members