Tag Archives: Libraries

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #41: Collect – and Use – Feedback

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #41: Collect – and Use – Feedback

When someone makes a judgement, they tend to care about what other people think.

This is why, when you buy a book, there are usually quotes from reviewers.

Or when you look for products online, other customers’ views are provided.

We naturally tend to want to agree with other people! And if they are positive, then you are more likely to be positive too.

You can use the same technique for your library.

So for our 41st 10-Minute Library Advocate exercise, collect, and use, feedback.

You can do this through a simple comments box or form.

Not only does this show that you are listening to your users but, as long as you ask permission, you can then use positive examples in your advocacy.

This will help show how much you community cares about your work – and why decision-makers should also!

Good luck!

 

See the introduction and previous posts in our 10-Minute Library Advocate series and join the discussion in social media using the #EveryLibrarianAnAdvocate hashtag!

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #40: Describe a Positive (or Negative) Scenario

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #40: Describe a Positive (or Negative) Scenario

Advocacy is about creating empathy.

It is important to make the person you are talking with imagine what supporting the library will mean.

Not just in terms of statistics or specifics, but in terms of how the lives of communities and their members will change.

Or, of course, to imagine the consequences of not acting.

This will allow them to think about how this will affect them, their communities, their voters.

So for our 40th 10-Minute Library Advocate Exercise, describe a positive (or a negative) scenario.

Try to create an image in their heads! Try to make it as real as possible, so that they can really picture what impacts their actions will have.

What will it mean for individuals, for societies as a whole?

Generally, try to be positive! But in some cases, a negative scenario – of what is lost when libraries are not supported – can help to focus minds.

Good luck!

 

See the introduction and previous posts in our 10-Minute Library Advocate series and join the discussion in social media using the #EveryLibrarianAnAdvocate hashtag!

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #39: Think of a Problem, and then Present Libraries as the Solution

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #39: Think of a Problem, and then Present Libraries as the Solution

Advocacy is powerful when you are offering solutions.

The people you are likely targeting – politicians, funders, others – spend a lot of their time trying to solve problems.

And there are plenty out there – social, political economic.

Of course, libraries also need things from decision-makers – funding, laws, other support.

But lawmakers may well be more likely to listen harder when you focus on how this could help them solve other challenges.

So for our 39th 10-Minute Library Advocate exercise, think of a problem, and then think about how you can present libraries as the solution.

Make sure it’s a problem that a decision-maker might care about. You can try with more than one of course.

For example, unemployment, lack of skills, a lack of integration.

If you practice your arguments, you’ll be better placed to influence others!

Good luck!

 

See the introduction and previous posts in our 10-Minute Library Advocate series and join the discussion in social media using the #EveryLibrarianAnAdvocate hashtag!

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #38: Send an Invitation to Visit your Library

Image: picture of a VIP invitation in an envelope. Text: #38 Send an invitation to visit your library. The 10-Minute Library AdvocateSome of the most powerful advocacy comes from showing what you’re doing, not just talking about it.

It’s natural for someone to believe more what they experience for themselves, than what they are told.

They’ll also remember it better!

This is as true for people in positions of power as for anyone else. Moreover, it’s possible that they haven’t visited a library in years.

So for our 38th 10-Minute Library Advocate exercise, send an invitation to visit your library!

Find someone you want to influence (see exercise #6!), and then write an invitation that gets them interested. Think about what they might want to see or say, and adapt to this (see our exercise #24!). Could there be a media opportunity for them?

Clearly the visit – and its preparation – will take more than 10 minutes, but the invitation doesn’t need to be long.  Indeed, something shorter may indeed have more power!

Good luck!

 

See the introduction and previous posts in our 10-Minute Library Advocate series and join the discussion in social media using the #EveryLibrarianAnAdvocate hashtag!

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #37: Memorise Names and Faces

Image: Hello my name is badge. Text: #37 The 10-Minute Library Advocate: Memorise Names and FacesOne way of advocating successfully is to become familiar with key decision-makers or influencers.

If you have a close connection, it is easier to share your arguments.

But how to build this connection up when you first come across them.

A good way to build familiarity is to avoid awkward questions about who they are by being able to address them immediately by their name.

Politicians at least tend to appreciate when people know who they are from the first moment. But this isn’t always easy in a public meeting.

So for our 37th 10-Minute Library Advocate exercise, memorise some names and faces.

If you know you might see them at a meeting, look them up online, and see if there are images available of them.

Try to remember them so that if you do end up meeting them, you can say hello immediately, and get straight into making your arguments!

Good luck!

 

See the introduction and previous posts in our 10-Minute Library Advocate series and join the discussion in social media using the #EveryLibrarianAnAdvocate hashtag!

Not Victims but Vectors of Change: Libraries, Climate Action and Peace

Climate change, if left untackled, risks not only being felt in an an ever-more-frequent series of extreme weather events, but also in a growing pressure on our socieites.

These pressures – less land, fewer resources, higher migration – have in the past been the cause of conflict. Without action, there is a justifiable fear that this could happen again.

As the United Nations Secretary-General sets out in his introduction to this year’s International Day of Peace, this is why it is important to address climate change in order to increase the chances of peace.

For libraries, both conflict and climate change can all too easily be seen as externalities – things that happen to our institutions without any possibility to respond. It is certainly true that it is hard to forget images of roofs blown off – by winds or bombs – and collections waterlogged or burnt.

However, libraries are far from powerless. For the reasons set out in this blog, they are not victims, but rather vectors of progress, helping to tackle climate change, and so preserve peace.

 

Better Prepared: Supporting the Reseach that Saves Lives

Clearly a core role of libraries is to support the production of, and access to, research. It is only thanks to the possibilty for experts to draw on evidence from the past, and to work together, that we have the understanding we have today of climate change and its impacts.

Libraries have of course done this for centuries, making it possible for scientists to take the work of those who have gone before, and go further. This has happened at a giant scale in climate science.

There is also a realisation that a complete understanding of climate change will also rely on bringing research in different disciplines together. Knowing what is going on is not just a question of meteorology, environmental science or any other single field, but will require insights from many different areas.

Libraries are already looking to do this, for example through their support to public health, or in realising the potential of old travel reports and maps in showing how our world is being altered over time. Open access will facilitate this significantly, as highlighted in the UN Global Sustainable Development Report.

Through this work, governments are better able to see what action is needed in order to relieve or reduce the pressures that can lead to conflict.

 

Behaviour Change, not Climate Change

Of course the fact that governments know they should be doing something does not mean that they will do it. A key means of ensuring that they do – as well as of reducing the factors that can drive unrest within communities – is by acting at the local level also.

Libraries have a key role to play here also. As set out in IFLA’s paper on libraries and sustainability, two key roles of libraries are as examples and educators, building understanding of the issues among citizens, and helping them to learn how to change their own behaviour.

This can be a key trigger, and support, for government action. Meanwhile, the support the libraries provide for the development of new technologies and new ideas will feed into the creation of new businesses and new jobs in future, as well as offering new ways of carrying out more traditional professions – such as farming – in a changed world.

This complements other work that libraries carry out to create a culture of peace, as highlighted in our previous work in this area in 2017 and 2018.

 

Libraries, therefore, are far from powerless faced with climate change and conflict. Instead, through acting on the one, they have a real contribution to make to efforts to reduce both, and in doing so, to build a more peaceful, more sustainable world.

The 10-Minute Library Advocate #35: Get Your Delivery Right!

Image: one person acting out a scene from a play to another. Text: #35, get your delivery right. The 10-Minute Library Advocate, ifla.orgSometimes in advocacy, it’s not what you say, but how you say it.

Even the best arguments and the strongest evidence still need to be presented well in order to have an impact.

Sometimes this is a question of the vocabulary you use.

Sometimes it’s about your tone, or how fast you are speaking.

So for our 35th 10-Minute Library Advocate Exercise, get your delivery right!

Bear in mind that you are a little like an actor, who adapts how they speak and act to have a greater effect.

For example, make sure you’re not using library jargon that others may not understand.

Be sure to speak clearly, keep your sentences short, and focus on the message you want to send.

And of course smile and be as warm as appropriate – it’ll make people think more positively about your message!

Good luck!

 

See the introduction and previous posts in our 10-Minute Library Advocate series and join the discussion in social media using the #EveryLibrarianAnAdvocate hashtag!