Advocacy in the Rural Library: Become your own best customer

Become a Connector and connect across the miles.

I have talked alot about marketing on this blog.  Advocacy is something that breathes life into marketing, and marketing is what a rural librarian needs to breathe life into the rural community.

An advocate is one who pleads for a cause; a champion; a defender.  To be an advocate one must act upon, or do something.  Advocacy is a verb; an action word.  It does not entail siting around waiting for someone else to come along, pick up the standard, and get things done.  As librarians in rural communities, we must do it ourselves for our communities.  We must be the ones to positively impact behavior in our public enterprises and local society.  It is no longer enough to put a sign up; we must change and become our own best customers.

Advocacy influences the power structure of a library.  It helps to create allies, route information, and meet community needs in a low-income environment.  It is the difference between just being "there", and being a focal point and action center.  Advocacy keeps the lines of communication open, and forces library staff to be proactive in networking and promoting library services.  As information specialists in the new century, we need to think and behave like CEO's:  creative, dynamic, and venturesome enough to generate our own ideas into action, borrow them from successful organizations, and apply them at home.  Advocacy makes us "seen" and "heard".

"Librarian" is the perfect definition of a Connector. Connectors are the influential people in a community or locale who network and bring about rapid and widespread change.  This type of Connector-mentality creates the greatest library advocacy.  A Connector "grows" networks by sharing information, and by initiating access to information.  This is a person with an appetite for continuous learning, and one who is comfortable across a wide range of social and organizational settings.  This is the 21st century librarian who will bring the future into the rural library setting.

Everybody loves a good story, especially one that promotes wisdom and health into a community.  The library is already filled with the ideas of great thinkers, innovators, and doers.  Connectors can share themselves with the community by using the library as a "neutral zone".  Its about building advocacy through local civic and social service organizations, community activists, and religious leaders.  Every town has these people living in it.  This is the opportunity to invite people who turn great ideas into reality into the library setting.  It is up to the rural librarian to locate and connect with these individuals to create advocacy that helps solve community needs, and position the library as the focal point of the community. 

Library services are impacted by advocating with other types of Connectors because this type of connecting increases library value and library visibility.  So, become your own best customer:  become a community Connector and your library's greatest advocate!

See 'Fotched-On' Librarian's newsletter archive on Scribd for ideas and tips on how to go about it!


Brought to you by The Settlement Library Project:
Serving People, Changing Perspectives, and Sharing Resources in Libraries



image:  School Library Journal http://www.slj.com/2014/01/schools/california-school-librarians-look-to-higher-ed-during-advocacy-overhaul/

Commentary on Survival

Persuasion is an Art.

However, persuading is different from convincing. To convince people means that you get them to agree that your argument or position is reasonable. To persuade them means that you motivate them to act based on their convictions.

  

In my neck of the woods there are many really, really small public libraries in no close proximity to any growing metropolis. There are also only seven bookmobiles in the entire state. These small rural libraries, falling under the Urban Development code of 2500 people or less, have only one or two paid workers, many volunteers, and probably with little exception, no one supporting an MLS. 

The backbone of librarianship can be seen in the small libraries which populate rural/urban America. These institutions may not be well funded, well stocked or glamorous, but they house the foundations of our national life through the contribution of the preservation of some of our national ideals; the maintenance of the family as a social institution and the cultivation of independent self-reliance and neighborliness. Pancake breakfasts, book sales, public auctions, and putting letters in the water bills begging for money in many cases augments poorly funded facilities. The success story for these “bypassed growth areas” has in fact been the internet, although in many cases not without a little kicking and screaming from the “old standard.” I have personally experienced a number of the “old standard” who sacrificed much to keep these community units alive. These are faithful and commendable individuals. 

Computer networks are currently available in even the smallest libraries; unfortunately, an unprecedented number do not have an internet presence or even a library email address. In addition, if it were not for women’s organizations, a substantial number of these units of rural America would not have survived as long as they have: many functioning in substandard buildings or, at the very least, those in desperate need of a makeover (the building, I mean).  

The educational needs of staff in small and rural libraries is relevant. A solo librarian does it all and usually does it all alone: cataloging, to funding, to fixing the toilet and mopping up the overflow. Unfortunately, the information culture that technology creates many times takes a back seat to more pressing issues, and what solo librarian has the time or resources to take webinars, go to conferences, or attend college when there is no proximity? As a matter of fact, in my state, there are only two colleges which offer an MLS and neither offer it completely online. Boards are usually locals who volunteer their time but have no concept of what it takes to run a library and feed the hungry masses either intellectually or socially outside of church or the volunteer fire hall. Although these individuals are to be commended for their efforts and sacrifices, many communities house a library in which the stacks are filled with 95% fiction, the only outreach services are to children, reference works are substantially minimal and outdated, and the hierarchy looks at “outsiders” who try to persuade for change as suspect. 

Although many public libraries see a decline in state revenues, there is no question that there are small and rural libraries which “have made it” in the library world and created citadels within their communities. This was never accomplished, however, without forward and inventive thinking, creativity, and a lot of energy used to convince hierarchy's and persuade for change.  It is correct that the Internet leveled the playing field between small and large libraries because of the opportunities it presents to small-town America. However, without special handling, the small, rural library cannot survive. On my side of the creek, the issue of survival definitely should be served up on the soup spoon daily - with or without the meat. 

The bottom line is this: There does not exist a library that is powerful enough to stand by itself in isolation.  

Cooperation does alleviate many burdens that make rural libraries reluctant to participate in  networking. Libraries should evaluate network opportunities, carefully weighing the challenges with the advantages, but always working toward providing their patrons with better service and materials. The community rural library can effectively be a blueprint for cultural improvement. Though staff running small or rural libraries may often feel like islands, cut off from the networking, technology, and resources available to larger libraries, there is an abundance of help for such libraries and plenty of opportunities for continued education. 

image: http://sanderscountyartscouncil.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/an-unladylike-battle-for-survival-in-the-sunnyside-library-ignites-students-questions/