Successful advocacy starts with building positive perceptions.

As discussed last week, it is important to know what your users think about your library. The same goes for non-users, who may of course include politicians and other decision-makers.

One of the key things that shapes the way your library is perceived is its appearance online. It is increasingly normal for library users and others to look for information about you on the internet before visiting.

What they find there will shape their opinions, and may even make the difference between them visiting or not. In particular, wrong information – about opening times or other services – can create disappointment.

Clearly building a website or even a good social media profile takes more than just 10 minutes. But by looking for your library through a search engine, you can get an idea of what your users may be seeing.

So the third exercise for our 10 Minute Library Advocates is to search for your own libraries online, and note down which sites mention you and your services, and what they say.

You can contact sites which have out-of-date information about your opening times and services to correct them. You can also think about which sites should be mentioning you, but aren’t.

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!