Speak Up – Advocating for You and Your Library - schedule

We become more powerful advocates in our careers, libraries, and world when our success is rooted in our community, not us. Using the Partner Power framework from the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), Elise Granata will share key tools, examples, and pathways for you to build successful advocacy in your role through community engagement.

For many years our library's funding has come directly from the parent organization to support all academic programs without taking into account the additional funding needed for new resources to support programs that are currently moving to online and new online programs that have recently started. This has led to a flat budget allocation that decreases the library's purchasing power and forces significant cuts in resources that are detrimental to students and faculty.

In response to this situation, our library has gained partnership with deans and program chairs to develop a "blended funding" model where support has come through common actions on both the part of the academic programs and the library to support existing resources and also add new resources in support of students and faculty. This presentation will discuss the background of the partnerships and share the contents of our memorandums of understanding that have helped us to generate new funding streams of support for online learners and identify programmatic priorities that are funded at higher levels.

Women make up 80% of the library workplace and 56% of the student body population in higher education (Department of Education, 2017). They make up 53% of the faculty, staff, and administration in public universities in the United States (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2017). Yet, it was easy for us to overlook a smaller, specific population: How was our organization serving moms? The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) Criss Library staff saw a need within our own work place for employees, which opened our eyes to a larger problem for patrons: a lactation space. Where could new mothers go to express breast milk or to feed their child (in a clean and private place) before going back to work or to a campus event? This led to a discussion between library units and eventually to collaborating with the UNO Chancellor’s Commission on the Status of Women (CCSW) to advocate for the construction of a lactation space within the library for all mothers. This self-advocacy not only strengthened employee morale internally, but also strengthened our connection with CCSW and campus leadership as library advocates.

This presentation will review the logistics for advocating for a lactation space, finding best practices, and our challenges and how we overcame them (including budgeting, retrofitting a space, and administrative red tape). Additionally, we will share updates about the construction of our lactation space and lessons learned from this project. The recruitment and retention of female students and employees matters in higher education and this lactation space is a physical representation of our family-friendly and inclusive policies at Criss Library and UNO.

Library outreach should be used not only as an opportunity to create relationships, but also create change through those connections. At the Berkeley College Library, an Outreach & Marketing Committee (O&M) was created with the goal of implementing consistent outreach campaigns to improve awareness of library services and resources and build relationships throughout the college community. This presentation will discuss how the O&M Committee uses the library's strategic goals to create cohesive communication strategies and design successful outreach to form strong connections with patrons and stakeholders. We will present outreach examples such as an augmented reality partnership with the admissions department, a LibGuide newsletter targeted to faculty and a campus-wide promotion of our LibAnswers platform. These campaigns have shown our library’s value to prospective & current students, other college departments and the important stakeholders. By effectively communicating our value through outreach and advocacy, the O&M Committee has assisted the library in gaining a seat at the table in campus-wide conversations that contribute to retention, information literacy education and student success.

Newly created roles in libraries are an exciting opportunity, but can also be confusing for colleagues, your campus, and community. The confusion is only compounded when a position breaks with tradition or is built on emerging ideas in the field. How can you cultivate collaboration when you and others struggle to define your new duties? A Student Success Librarian speaks to the process of personal branding, crafting a communication plan and networking with coworkers and campus units in a brand new, nontraditional role in an academic library.

Developing relationships with the community and collaborating with other groups on campus can raise the profile of your college library. Hear about two successful collaborations (one on campus, the other within the community) that have resulted in more patrons and more money flowing through one university library.

Every library, librarian, and patron has a role to play in fearlessly advocating for libraries. Learn how to leverage your professional networks to build your base and win the support of your community. Effective coalition building and collaboration techniques can cement the position of your library as the cornerstone of your community.

Library leaders can no longer hide in their offices. It is the director’s responsibility to represent the organization and to draw attention to the excellent work done by staff. The organization is responsible to its stakeholders including its investors: the taxpayers. Library leaders should be out in the community, not just on the public floors of their own facility, but actually out at community meetings, public forums, neighborhood events, and business gatherings. This session will cover running public office hours, where the director sets up shop in an open part of the library and meets with the public and frontline staff. It will cover how to stay on message and effectively mitigate complaints and suggestions. The session will also discuss how librarians and administrators can become active in the community. It will suggest the types of organizations to interact with, how to tailor your message to interest your different audiences, and provide examples of how this has worked for the Albany Public Library. Lastly, it will cover annual community reports, including how they should be prepared and presented in multiple formats and discussed at public meetings in the community. The hope is that this session will inspire library leaders to become community leaders, and in doing so, secure appropriate funding for our organizations.

Advocacy doesn’t just happen; it needs to be intentional, so making our stories visible through data provides evidence of value and impact on student learning. Sharing library experiences about leading, teaching, and student empowerment provided opportunities to frame what we wanted the users to know, justified our actions, and determined our priorities for not only this year but for the future. In order to market our connection to the community, the data collected to create the story must be structured around library frameworks, related to school and classroom goals, and illustrate a responsiveness to community. Listen to stories, strategies and ideas around telling your library story.

Stories are emotional, inspirational, aspirational, educational, relationship builders, connection creators and loved by all. Stories can cut through the clutter and noise of other communications and competition for the attention of our audiences and community members. We already know that people respond enthusiastically to stories, much more so than stats, numbers, or dry facts. Humans are wired for stories. And who knows stories better than libraries?! What are the core stories your library should be telling in its marketing? When you know what stories to focus on, it makes it easier to create compelling copy and messages. BUT … we often don’t do a good enough job of telling our OWN library story. So, let’s get better at it. Marketing is part of advocating for our libraries, and I firmly believe marketing is just a form of storytelling. Let’s build our strategic storytelling skills so that we can create effective, compelling, engaging messages of advocacy that our stakeholders, partners, and community want to share. Let’s revisit the basics of storytelling and learn to apply those frameworks to our communications. Do you know who the “hero” is in your stories? Learn the common types of stories that libraries need to be telling about themselves. Identify the emotion you want to invoke in your library’s audience for each specific piece of communication. Be ready to implement one or more of those story ideas to craft a message around in the following month.