Tag Archives: Advocacy

Advocacy, CMLE

Take action to save federal library funding! Yes: You!!

Librarians have always been cool and cutting edge!
From:
Beth Yoke, CAE
Executive Director
Young Adult Library Services Association

The White House budget that was released today calls for eliminating the Institute of Museum & Library Services (IMLS), the only federal agency charged with providing support to the nation’s hundreds of thousands of libraries and museums.  ALA and YALSA need your help to ensure that IMLS is saved, because without libraries teens will not have the resources and support they need to succeed in school and prepare for college, careers, and life.  Here’s what you can do right now:*   Use the sample messages in this document to contact the offices of your members of Congress

*   Share your photo or story via this form of how support from IMLS has enabled you and your library to help the teens in your community.  YALSA will use this information to advocate against the elimination of IMLS
*   Sign up via this web page to receive updates on the #SaveIMLS effort
*   Add your name to this online petition being circulated by EveryLibrary
*   Start planning how you, your teen patrons, and library advocates will participate in National Library Legislative Day on May 2.  Use the resources on YALSA’s wiki.

*   Encourage your friends, family, and colleagues to do the above as well

Don’t know much about IMLS?  Here’s a quick overview: through IMLS, every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. territories receive funding to support their state’s libraries and museums.  In FY14 the total funding IMLS distributed to states and territories was $154,800,000.  In addition, IMLS offers competitive grant opportunities that individual libraries and museums can apply for.  In FY14 they awarded 594 grants (from 1,299 applications) totaling more than $54,700,000.  Visit the IMLS site to see how much funding your state receives from them.

Want to take further action to support teens and libraries?  We salute you!  Check out the free online resources we have to make speaking up for teens and libraries easy.

-Beth

Beth Yoke, CAE
Executive Director
Young Adult Library Services Association
50 E. Huron St. Chicago, IL 60611
1.800.545.2433 x4391
fax: 312.280.5276
byoke@ala.org<mailto:byoke@ala.org>
@yalsa_director

Academic, Advocacy, Communication, Public, School Media Specialist, Services

National Library Week is coming soon!

Even though every day is a great day to celebrate libraries, there is a special week each year designated to highlight their importance and awesomeness!

This year, that week is from April 9 – 15 and “is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s libraries and library workers and to promote library use and support.”

This year’s theme for the week is “Libraries Transform.” ALA has a Press Kit to help you prepare for activities and events you may want to plan to take place during this exciting week! Check out their library week fact sheet or watch this video from the 2016 National Library Week Video Challenge

For some great suggestions on how to celebrate National Library Week, check out this post from I Love Libraries.

We’d love to hear about your plans for National Library Week! Share with us in the comments!

Advocacy, Communication

Can you spare a moment for a survey on advocacy tools?

CMLE members – we are passing this on to give you a chance to share your views on the tools the profession is providing for you to help you advocate. As you know, at CMLE Headquarters we are BIG fans of advocacy!! And we recognize it’s tough to do alone. So we provide some resources, and so does the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC).

Is it what you need?? Share your views, to make things better for everyone!

Continue reading Can you spare a moment for a survey on advocacy tools? →

Advocacy, CMLE

Minnesota Library Legislative Day 2017!

Minnesota’s Library Legislative Day was Wednesday, Feb 22; and it was a great event!! If you have not been to one, please consider attending next year – it is so great to be in a group of library people all talking about the wonderful things libraries do. And legislators generally want to hear from us, because they like to know money is being well spent in their communities. So, it’s fun for everyone!!

This is a brief report on some of the activities of the day, to give other newbies an idea of what is like to participate in this event. We had a LOT of CMLE library people and Board members attending this year!! It was great to see people there, talking about all the great things in their libraries and library service across the state.

Thank you so much to everyone who was able to attend. And if you were not – you can always email, call, or write to your legislator! And thank you to the organizers of this event, who worked so hard to get everything together for it to be such a positive experience!

The “day” started on Tuesday evening, as several of us gathered at the Rice Street library in St Paul. We had the first legislative briefing, and had time to ask questions, share ideas on strategies, and to meet library people in person. Continue reading Minnesota Library Legislative Day 2017! →

Advocacy, Training

Advocate! Send a handwritten note!!

Passing this on from the ALA!

It’s Take Action Tuesday and Week 3 of the Winter 2017 Everyday Advocacy Challenge!

Send a handwritten invitation to a local elected official or staff person.

Our Week Two challenge was to make a phone call or in-person visit to a local official’s office to introduce yourself, including the elevator speech you wrote during Week One.

Continue reading Advocate! Send a handwritten note!! →