Tag Archives: Advocacy

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

VIRTUAL Legislative Day-March 6th Call or Email!

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MLA LogoThis update is from Mark Ranum, MLA Legislative Chair

March 6 is your day to contact your HOUSE and SENATE members and ADVOCATE FOR LIBRARIES!!!

If you can’t make Legislative Day in person, you can still make a difference by contacting your Representatives and Senators by telephone or email and letting them know that library funding from the state is very important!

You can review the platform and documents on specific issues of interest at http://www.mnlibraryassociation.org/committees/legislative-committee#documents

The bill numbers for each issue will be available on the MLA website under the legislative committee documents link listed above, so you can refer to specific bill numbers in the House and Senate when you contact legislators.  Some of the issues will not have specific bill numbers since they are part of the Governor’s proposed budget.

When you call or email, it’s best to advocate for a specific issue or bill, and particularly if that issue or bill is under consideration in one of the committees where your legislator is a member.

Find your legislators at http://www.gis.leg.mn/OpenLayers/districts/   When your Senator and Representative names are displayed, you can click on their names to find out their committee assignments.

You can pass this email along to all your library board members, friends, and advocates, and library patrons!!  Encourage them to contact their legislators!

Even a call or email expressing general library support on March 6 would be terrific and very helpful in our advocacy efforts.  The more positive energy and impact we have that day, the more positive our conversations about libraries continue at the Capitol.

Mark Ranum, Director Plum Creek Library System
Box 697, 290 S. Lake Street
Worthington, MN 56187
507.376.5803 ext. 1 (office)
612.701.9989 (cell)
mranum@plumcreeklibrary.net

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Tips on Connecting with the New Congress – From Stephanie Vance

The ALA Washington Office held a webinar on November 19, 2012 in which Stephanie Vance (The Advocacy Guru and keynote speaker at MLA 2012) gave an update on the recent elections and tips on how to connect (about library issues) with the new Congress (113th).  The video was recorded and is available at the following link, which also includes some additional materials referenced in the video.
http://www.districtdispatch.org/2012/11/election-update-and-connecting-with-the-new-congress-video/

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Save the Date for MN Library Legislative Day at the Capitol

From: Mark Ranum, Director of Plum Creek Library System & MLA Legislative Committee Chair Elect

Please SAVE THE DATE for Minnesota Library Legislative Day at the Capitol.  We will be gathering on Wednesday, March 6, 2013 for our annual lobbying day on the hill.

Please share this date widely with library staff, boards, trustees, supporters, and advocates!

More details to follow.  As always, there will be an evening briefing on Tuesday, March 5 at 5 PM at a location near the Capitol and a morning briefing on Wednesday, March 6 at 9 AM in the MN Judicial Center room 230.

Academic, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

14 Ways Public Libraries Are Good for the Country

An oldie but a goodie, this information has been offered before in other venues. It resides on the iLoveLibraries.org site (an initiative of the American Library Association). This little list is a great source to review so you have a solid set of talking points as we move into new relationships with legislators. You always need to have your “elevator speech” ready!

It is sometimes harder (takes more time too) to explain and speak to the virtues and issues of special, school, and academic libraries, because without a full explanation about funding streams and mission, it is easy jump to a conclusion of redundancy. But most legislators fully understand public libraries, a well-loved, well understood concept. The concise little list of 14 is available at http://tinyurl.com/8ryvrfx 

*The list linked to in this post originally appeared in the Librarians Books of Lists (Chicago: ALA Editions, 2010).

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

CMLE Pilot Shadowing Program

CMLE provides support services to 319 libraries/media centers in twelve counties of Central Minnesota. We work with college librarians, special librarians (hospital, prison, historical socities) and public librarians. It is probably no surprise that the  largest group are our 265 media centers. All libraries have a variety of services and focus areas, but it is within the media center  group that we see the most variety. Some schools have district level media directors in addition to  media specialists in each school. Some schools have no media specialists. And, in some schools, the media specialist has a tight focus within the media center only, in other schools, the media specialist is taking the lead on moving the district into the one-to-one (1:1) computing world! And, as you can imagine, we have everything in between too!

CMLE is in a perfect position to understand these variations and identify meaningful relationships and partnerships between our different library types. And we strongly believe that all types of librarians have similar goals, yet different ways of going about the work they do. This academic year, we will be piloting a shadowing program. We believe that there is power in walking in someone elses shoes for a day; shadowing them to see what is entailed in a typical day. We will help arrange opportunities for librarians to spend a day with a different type of libraian. We believe these shadowing experiences will help us understand what we all have in common, and enable us all to speak about  libraries using one voice. We believe it is possible that all librarians may very well have the same goals; falling along the lines of education! Are you interested in a shadowing experience? Let me know at papost@stcloudstate.edu