Politicians and advertisers know that the promise of a better life is one of the most powerful tools in getting people’s attention and changing their minds.
Libraries deliver this, but don’t always explain it clearly or convincingly. To be a good advocate, you need to be able to say quickly and clearly how libraries make a difference to people’s daily lives.
A key first step is to organise your own arguments.
So take a piece of paper (or your phone or computer), and think of three different things that your library does that benefit ordinary people. Make sure these are things that really matter to individuals. Think: what makes your library special or useful to them?
Once you have written your ideas down, remember them! If you want, you can test them out on a friend or colleague, or share them on social media using the #EveryLibrarianAnAdvocate hashtag!
See you next week for our next exercise!
See here for our first post about the whole 10-Minute-Library-Advocate series!
* Libraries boost reading skills in children.
* Libraries help us become multi-lingual.
* Libraries make us aware of our world.
* Libraries build awareness about career options, reduce joblessness.
* Libraries inspire us to build local histories.
* Libraries remove the dreariness from the lives of the elderly.
* Libraries help us find our right career.
* Libraries reduce gender, racial, class, class inequalities.
* Libraries help us recognise who we are.
* Libraries allow us to travel and time-travel, with minimum carbon footprint.
Our libraries:
– Allows access to relevant and checked information
– It offers spaces for integration and creation for their communities.
– Offers a complementary and open alternative for formal education
Go, Libraries!
Working in a university library, it is necessary to convince and motivate teachers that the library is not a place apart from teaching, but a center of support and collaboration to enrich the learning of students and teachers themselves.