Using Technology to Advocate for your Library

1. Using Technology to Advocate for your Library

2. Advocacy is important • Does anyone in this room feel like they have as much funding as they need?

3. We need to advocate: • Who? • Legislature, city and county governments, our larger organizations, our patrons, etc. • What? • Funding, budgets, staffing, soap, office supplies, toilet paper. • When? • All the time! • But be careful: remember to be legal and ethical. • Why? • Because libraries are important. • Where? • At work and outside of work. • But be careful: remember to be legal and ethical.

4. I advocate: laziness • Technology can help minimize effort and maximize results. • Simple ways: • Share the effort – it’s just like MARC records and cataloging! • Sharing information online can be easy (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.), but if it doesn’t come naturally, there are other ways. (Or get a volunteer to handle social networking.) • Focus on your strengths. • Don’t forget in-person and non-technology based strategies. • Elevator speech, personal connections, library visits etc.

5. Specific Strategies • Be informed! • How-to information is easy to find: • Connecting with Your Legislators: A Guide for New Mexico Libraries • Advice from Wisconsin • Bonds for Libraries • Find Your Legislators • Find Your Whole ZIP Code • Track Bills

6. Collecting Stories • Free online surveys • Not the best for statistics • Good for collecting stories • Two options: • Surveymonkey – have to pay for fancy options • Sample survey using Surveymonky • Google docs – make a form • Sample survey using Google docs

7. Use your ILS • Surveys aren’t good for collecting numbers, and reference desk statistics can be ambiguous and hard to compile. • We all (mostly) have access to lots and lots of numbers. • Pick impressive ones your system will generate easily. • Use conferences and listservs to find out from other librarians what works in your ILS. • Suggestions: • Circulation statistics, per day/week/month/year. • Pick a popular title and see how many times it circulated in a period of time • Age of collection, to show that you need the money – especially in fast-changing areas like math, science, medicine, or law.

8. Templates, Templates, Templates • Ask your fellow librarians if you can modify theirs. • Some things (technically not templates) don’t even need to be modified: • If the GO Bond makes it on the ballot, you’ll be able to find promotional materials here: Bonds for Libraries. • A fact sheet about how school libraries benefit from GO Bond funding. • These are templates, and you can modify them: • Fact sheet for school libraries • Fact sheet for public libraries • Bookmark (one-sided)

9. Conclusion • Advocacy is important. • It doesn’t have to consume your life. • If everyone does a little bit, we can keep libraries visible.

10. Questions? Comments? Great Ideas to Share?

11. Links • Advocacy: legal and ethical issues: http://bondsforlibraries.nmla.org/advocacy-is-it-legal-ethical/ • South Central Library System (WI) Online Advocacy Toolkit: http://www.scls.info/pr/advocacy/ • Bonds for Libraries (NM): http://bondsforlibraries.org/ • Find your NM Legislator: http://www.nmlegis.gov/lcs/legislatorsearch.aspx • Find your complete zip code: • https://tools.usps.com/go/ZipLookupAction!input.action • Find and track NM bills: http://www.nmlegis.gov/lcs/BillFinder.aspx • Sample surveymonkey survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/523WW6P • Sample google docs survey: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHlXdElzbVRsYk9PLWM4TjBwa2FHUGc6MQ • Connecting with your Legislators Guide: http://nmla.org/docs/Connecting.pdf