Advocacy

The Georgia Public Library Service helps states tell their stories of impact with targeted tools and training, plus a dash of cash—winning it LJ's 2020 Marketer of the Year Award.

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced Broward County Library, FL, to close its branches to the public, it immediately surveyed patron needs and created a targeted, data-driven marketing campaign to inform customers about electronic resources, online programs, and other content the library was offering. Los Angeles Public Library created new cardholders with its Art Card, designed by Gajin Fujita, an established graffiti artist. These very different campaigns, aimed directly at patron needs and preferences, earned the two libraries Honorable Mention for LJ's 2020 Marketer of the Year Award.

It is important for library leaders to realize that every other local organization or unit of government who responded to the COVID disaster with compassion, engagement, and their best efforts also has a great story to tell. During times of austerity, the narratives that matter are about direct and measurable outcomes for people who used your service, visited your program, accessed your collections, or interacted with your staff.

Libraries can and should continue to apply creative problem-solving to mitigate the worst impacts of this pandemic on staff and users. There is a limit to what even the most nimble, inventive, and dedicated libraries—or even consortia or associations—can fix. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing we can do. We need to think bigger and to throw the collective power of our profession toward advocacy for large-scale solutions.

In summer 2016, four librarians—Jessica Anne Bratt, Amita Lonial, Sarah Lawton, and Amy Sonnie—created Libraries 4 Black Lives (L4BL), an online space for libraries to support the Movement for Black Lives and develop a support community for advocates doing racial justice work in libraries. While L4BL is no longer active, Bratt, youth services manager at the Grand Rapids Public Library, MI, has continued her advocacy and social justice work. LJ recently caught up with her to find out more about what she’s been doing.

Whether lobbying legislators for funding libraries or a foundation for new shelving, public library leaders, communications staff, and even frontline workers need to be efficient and nimble when articulating their impacts to outside stakeholders. Crucially, they need to approach the question from the vantage of how the library’s outcomes align with that particular stakeholder’s mission.

Christian Zabriskie and Lauren Comito have partnered to make Urban Librarians Unite a powerful grassroots organization, while serving as a model for how teamwork can get things done—earning them the shared title of LJ's 2020 Librarian of the Year.

Dated October 15, ALA’s report to Congress summarizes challenges facing the library field with regard to ebooks, streaming content, the pricing of digital academic journal subscriptions, anti-competitive behavior in digital textbook publishing, and the publishing industry’s capture and use of student data.

Following years of declining investment, the United Kingdom’s public libraries will receive a significant boost, with over £125 million ($160,466,000) in new funding for regional museums and libraries throughout the country.