Thing 16: Advocacy

I think we are in times where all library professionals, no matter their field of interest need to be shouting for each others. When you love libraries and think they are important it is very difficult to say that one form is more or less important than another. What would a University be with out its library, i know i would not have the qualifications that i have with out one. The important role that librarians can play in the corporate environment, with in parliament, with in our towns, cities and rural areas.

I know i am preaching to the converted and we are very good at talking to each other about how great we are but somehow that message gets lost. I know that i have not been directly involved in advocacy but i can see it's importance and we are encouraged in our service to try and make sure that we talk our services and libraries up rather than down no matter who we are talking to. With this in mind i have become a library bore to all my friends and family, when ever we have a new service to offer, an event, or just a reminder whenever i can of what we have to offer.

As far as advocacy as part of my job, i am not directly involved, though again when dealing with customers of any kind i always use this as an opportunity to educate people about what libraries do these days and try to talk with enthusiasm about our profession. It is, however the case that i seem to fall into the terrible category of people who believe in advocacy but don't feel i have time to participate. It is a shameful admission but external pressures make getting involved rather difficult. This is why i feel somehting like 23 things is really great. It has proved to be something that i can get involved in easily and in away the number of people getting involved in this is a wonderful advocacy for our profession.


Perhaps we will get better at learning to help ourselves!