Frontline Advocacy for Corporate, Government, and Other Libraries

ALA Advocacy Library

Everyone who works at a  special library can be an advocate. The Frontline Advocacy Toolkit provides practical tools to help frontline library staff identify opportunities to advocate for the value of libraries and their own value on a daily basis.

 

Contents:

Why Are You Your Special Library’s Best Frontline Advocate?
What Does an Effective Frontline Advocate for Special Libraries Do?
Frontline Advocacy Every Day : Library Leadership, Staff and Others Working Together
Ten Steps for Special Library Leadership

Why Are You Your Special Library’s Best Frontline Advocate?

Good question! The truth is, you are a valuable staff member, and you know your special library best. Whether this is your first year or your 30th year in your job, you are part of an important team that provides a critical service to your organization. You also understand the environment in which your “parent” organization exists and how your library contributes to that organization’s goals and successes.

You are someone your colleagues, friends, neighbors, family and others connect with your organization and its library because they know you work there. You have credibility and the power of persuasion when you talk about your library because you are the face of your library and organization to the wider community. You also understand the little things that count most when it comes to building support for the services your library or information center provides.

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What Does an Effective Frontline Advocate for Special Libraries Do?

Frontline advocacy is all about informing and persuading. It’s about partnering with your library staff and others to place your library in the spotlight at every opportunity. It’s about saying and doing the little things on a daily basis that give others positive feelings and an appreciation of your organization’s library, and doing the big things when times are hard. Don’t wait for a crisis to advocate for your library or information center. Practice it every day, and, when there is a special issue or concern, you’ll be very good at it.

Resist the urge to say, “Yeah, but…” Instead, check out Six Good Excuses That Won’t Work (PDF).

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Frontline Advocacy Every Day : Library Leadership, Staff and Others Working Together

You understand the value of the services that your library or information center provides to your organization and its staff. Tell others! Think about two kinds of frontline advocacy for your special library, “informal” and “planned.”

“Informal” frontline advocacy is simply using everyday opportunities to tell or remind people about your library’s resources and value to employees, managers, researchers and possibly the public. How do you do it? You can share success stories with colleagues, family, friends, neighbors and the public relations manager you bump into at the neighborhood coffee shop. It’s not hard; in fact, you probably do this already, without consciously thinking of it as frontline advocacy. You have many opportunities to share this information every day. Seize those opportunities! Once you start practicing it, you’ll find that talking positively and persuasively about your special library and the value of your job there comes easily and spontaneously.

“Planned” frontline advocacy is more deliberate, and it requires the efforts of library leadership. It starts with defined goals and a carefully crafted message, and is more strategic than informal advocacy; but like informal advocacy, it’s not difficult. It requires someone who is willing to be a leader - such as the librarian/information specialist or other library staff member - and a simple, organized plan.

Below are some basic steps for planned frontline advocacy. A library leader who follows them will find the information and tools he or she needs to be deliver a well-crafted, effective frontline advocacy message.

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Ten Steps for Special Library Leadership

  1. Be sure your library or information center administrator supports frontline advocacy, then recruit others with strong interest in your special library or information center to join your efforts. Who? The other members of your library staff, of course, but also library users, other professionals in your organization and administrative personnel. This is your “A Team.” (“A” stands for advocacy.)

  2. Gather your A Team together and think hard about your library. What are its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats? Click on Your Special Library’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (PDF) or download the SWOT Analysis worksheet (Word doc) to guide you.

  3. Determine your goal. For example, would you like to make your library more accessible to employees by remaining open longer hours? To add new electronic resources that will access crucial information faster than you can currently provide it?

  4. Understand why that goal is important to the organization’s success. These are your objectives. Identify and list your goals and objectives using a tool in this toolkit, Frontline Advocacy for Special Libraries: Goals and Objectives (PDF) | Goals-Objectives-Strategies worksheet (Word doc).

  5. Craft a strong, clear message that communicates your goal. Make it short and memorable. Be sure that listeners understand that your special library or information center is at the heart of what your organization does well. This toolkit contains guidelines for helping you craft the best message possible. Check out Crafting Your Message (PDF) or download the Crafting Your Message worksheet (Word doc).

  6. Ask your A Team to list all the people they know who need to hear your important and timely message. Need help with this? Go to Target Audience Identification for All Frontline Advocacy Staff (PDF)  or download the Target Audience Planning worksheet (Word doc).

  7. Think of all the ways you can communicate your message to a variety of people. These are your strategies. Brainstorm beyond the A Team and get lots of people’s creative suggestions. Look at the tool Effective Strategies for Frontline Advocates (PDF) for some great ideas, and remember to decide who will be responsible for particular tasks.

  8. Congratulations! You’re just developed your A Team’s frontline advocacy plan. Now it’s time to write it down. You can summarize it in two pages by using this handy tool, Your A Team’s Frontline Advocacy Plan (PDF) or downloading the Frontline Advocacy Plan worksheet (Word doc).

  9. Find jobs for everyone on your library’s staff and anyone else who wants to help. Ask them to use their networks of friends, family and others to help spread the message that your special library really matters when it comes to individual and organizational success. Let them work at their comfort level, and encourage them to have fun doing it.

  10. Get the A Team together regularly to evaluate how you’re doing and to celebrate a job well done. Can you use one more tool? Click on Evaluating Your Efforts (PDF) download the Evaluating Your Efforts worksheet (Word doc) and make it easy to assess your performance.

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More Resources

Although "advocacy" is certainly not a new word in libraries, ALA President Camila Alire's initiative term "frontline advocacy" is a new term that focuses on the advocacy roles and responsibilities of all levels of employees in all types of libraries. And, although public, school and academic libraries have more easily identifiable related professional literature, special libraries - while rich in subject content – see very little professional information relating to frontline advocacy.

Every Voice Makes a Difference! Flashcard for Special Libraries (PDF)

Besides outstanding content (both for SLA members and non-members) on the SLA website, there are resources and recommended directions for special librarians who are interested in researching the professional literature with an interest in expanding their advocacy efforts. These directions include:

  • Networking with national or regional Special Library Association members who are active in advocating both externally and internally to special library environments
  • Exploring the professional literature of other related associations for advocacy content that is close to frontline advocacy
  • Tracking special library literature for related advocacy areas specific to unique or special environments such as health sciences librarians, special collections librarians, etc.
  • Exploring solo librarianship content for recommended advocacy directions
  • Identifying related issues in advocacy in general such as the use of ROI data in justifying budget requests and/or the value of libraries in tough economic times

 

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ALA Advocacy Library