Thursday, May 31, 2018

Time To Refocus Our Advocacy Approach; Library Journal, May 21, 2018

Rebecca T. Miller, Library Journal; Time To Refocus Our Advocacy Approach 

"If you haven’t yet read From Awareness to Funding: Voter Perceptions and Support of Public Libraries in 2018, please put it on the top of your to-do list. Released in March by the Public Library Association (PLA) and the American Library Association Office for Library Advocacy, in partnership with OCLC, it updates the findings of the initial Awareness to Funding report done in 2008 with startling insights into how voters connect to libraries or—more concerning—increasingly don’t.

EveryLibrary’s John Chrastka (a 2014 LJ Mover & Shaker [M&S]) tunes us in to some of the conclusions and reflects on a primary takeaway in “Reversing the Slide in Voter Support.” He urges a tactical shift in library advocacy...

It’s critical to articulate and convey just what is at stake. Writing on her library’s blog, Vailey Oehlke, director of the Multnomah County Library, OR, and a past PLA president, notes the report’s findings “call for urgent action.” Exploring a number of factors in play, she arrives at a proposal to update an “equation” she argues libraries have depended on for a long time, shifting from “if books = important; and library = books; then libraries = important” to “if libraries = democracy; and democracy = important; then libraries = important.”"

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