Public library advocacy in Portugal: a tentative approach

Public library advocacy in Portugal: a tentative approach
José António Calixto

•What is advocacy?
•Why advocacy?
•Public libraries advocacy in Portugal?
•What should we do?
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Outline
17/09/2014

Give voice to…
advocacy

Develop advocacy programmes and/or policies. “For clarity, focus and follow up, libraries need to develop appropriate programmes/policies for advocacy.”
Get national library associations involved in advocacy programmes. “As the umbrella bodies for the national LIS community, it is important for national library associations to be implicated in the advocacy programmes of libraries in one way or the other.”
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IFLA Survey (2013)
(best practices focused on collaboration)
Conclusions
17/09/2014

What is advocacy?
•Public policy advocacy is the interaction of private persons with the state or local authorities' institutions with the aim of achieving that certain decisions are or are not taken or certain activities are or are not performed in the interests of these persons or third persons'.
Association of Accredited Public Policy Advocates
to the European Union
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“If a boy tells his girl he loves her, that’s advertising. If he tells her how great he is, that’s promotion. If her friends tell her how great he is, that’s public relations!”
•(Fox, former president of the Public Relations Society of America, in Usherwood 1981, 6) . Judith A. Siess, The Visible Librarian, p. XV
What is advocacy?
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•Marketing
•Promotion or publicity
•Public relations
What is advocacy?
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•Marketing is determining who you serve and with what products
•Promotion or publicity is getting the word out that you can help people do their jobs better- cheaper-faster
•Public relations is talking to people about their needs and your strengths
Judith A. Siess, The Visible Librarian, p. XV
What is advocacy?
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•“Advocacy is about saying to decision-makers, potential partners, funders [or] any stakeholder, ‘Your agenda will be greatly assisted by what we have to offer.’ Advocacy is about getting support from those who are in a position to help you and your library.” (Cavill 2001, 91).
What is advocacy?
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•Advocacy means different things to different people. For the purpose of this course, it is the process of acting on behalf of the library to increase public support and funding. Advocacy includes:
–Building strategic partnerships with local groups
–Develloping effective approaches that demonstrate a library´s value ,and
–Delivering messages about the importance of libraries
Turning the page
What is advocacy?
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•Advocacy is related to both promotion and marketing, but an advocate is generally seeking to influence an issue. Although many tend to see advocates as protesters, the truly successful advocates are patiently and carefully building relationships and understandings out there with the people who make decisions and the people who influence them. They make the case that their cause is going to advance the real priorities of decision-makers. We could say, then, that they are "marketing" an issue.
Wendy Newman, Library Advocacy Unshushed
What is advocacy?
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•Advocacy includes all the aspects of professionalism that we can use to accomplish the above: dress, attitude, continuing education, networking, and working to improve the image of our profession.
What is advocacy?
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What is advocacy?
•Defending
•Influence
•Sensitizing
•Interviewing
•Change
•Decision-Making
•Persuasion
•Selling an Idea
•Exposure,
•Lobbying
•Communication
•Attracting Attention
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Why advocacy?
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Why advocacy?
•Today’s public libraries are consistently being challenged to do more with less—less money, less staff, and less time. It has never been more important for librarians, staff members, trustees, and others with a vested interest in their public libraries, to convey to their communities the value of the library.
Public Library Association
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Why advocacy?
•Today’s public libraries are consistently being challenged to do more with less—less money, less staff, and less time. It has never been more important for librarians, staff members, trustees, and others with a vested interest in their public libraries, to convey to their communities the value of the library. Advocacy, the process of acting on behalf of the public library to increase public funds and ensure that it has the resources need to be up to date, is critical to the success of libraries.
•Through tools, training, and education, PLA is committed to providing you with information and resources to help you become an even better advocate for your library.
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•Distinction of advocacy on behalf of others and grassroots advocacy or civic or political participation
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Why advocacy?
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•An advocate is one who speaks or acts on behalf of another or in support of a cause” (Bingham in Kirchner 1999, 844).
What is an advocate?
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•Library trustees
•Friends of libraries
•Library users (Stakeholders)
•Institutional and community leaders
•Librarians and library staff
•Library and Information Science students
•Potential advocates
Who are the advocates?
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Public library advocacy in Portugal?
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•Active intervention whenever public information services are at jeopardy due to political or administrative interference;
•Increase proximity to the Assembly of Republic and the parliamentary groups, in order to assure a greater awareness of MPs of the reality of information services and professionals;
•Close contact with economic and social agents, specifically with social partners at the Permanent Comission of Social Concertation, aiming at highlighting the relevant role of information services for citizenship;
•Strenghten contacts with relevant departments of public administration, to foster a better undestanding of the evolution of the of information services management;
•Follow and report finantial cuts in information services and the hiring of non professional staff for professional jobs;
•Awareness-raising campaigns aimed at specific audiences.
Social and political intervention
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1.Recognize and utilize the unique expertise of each partner.
2.Create or co-create materials that your partners can use to advocate for libraries beyond your reach
3.Provide the training and support your staff needs to let everyone on your library team become an advocate.
4.Get a library presence embedded into your local government.
5.Find the issues that local, national and regional governments care about – and show how your libraries are creating solutions to those issues.
6.Set aside a separate budget for advocacy.
7.Partner with organizations with varied backgrounds: governmental, non- governmental, business world and others.
8.Develop advocacy programmes and/or policies.
9.Get national library associations involved in advocacy programmes.
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IFLA survey
What should we do?
17/09/2014

8.Develop advocacy programmes and/or policies. “For clarity, focus and follow up, libraries need to develop appropriate programmes/policies for advocacy.”
9.Get national library associations involved in advocacy programmes. “As the umbrella bodies for the national LIS community, it is important for national library associations to be implicated in the advocacy programmes of libraries in one way or the other.”
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What should we do?
17/09/2014

What should we do? (libraries)
I interviewed a former president of ALA. She said that, when she asked the president of each of the divisions, e.g., school, public, university, etc., what was important about their type of library, not one of them could reply. At the least, we should all be able to say what is essential about our libraries. We should have evidence for our statements, and we should be able to engage people with stories. (Denning calls them "springboard stories".)(…)
Wendy Newman
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What should we do? (libraries)
The most important thing, though, according to the evidence, is to have the right relationships in place. That is, we need to have strong relationships of credibility and trust with decision-makers. We should be "at the table" with them, regularly. In my experience, this is the most significant and most damaging shortcoming. Librarians do not consider that relationship development to be an important use of their time. They regard this as "politics", and they consider politics to be repugnant, unprofessional, etc.
Wendy Newman
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http://www.ala.org/offices/ola
What should we do? (library association)
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http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/advocacy-awards-and-projects/advocacy-and-awards
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http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/advocacy-awards-and-projects/advocacy-and-awards
CILIP Advocacy and campaigns
–Academic and research libraries
–Copyright
–Ebooks
–Information literacy
–Information management
–Public libraries
–School libraries
–Health
–International
–National Libraries Day
–Libraries All Party Parliamentary Group
–Prison libraries
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http://www.eblida.org/
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•Through tools, training, and education, PLA is committed to providing you with information and resources to help you become an even better advocate for your library.
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http://www.ifla.org/node/8698
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Training
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http://libraries.nogginlabs.com/trackpla/intro.asp
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https://www.edx.org/course/university-torontox/university-torontox-la101x-library-1335#.VA24GvldWSp
Training
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Develop advocacy programmes and/or policies. “For clarity, focus and follow up, libraries need to develop appropriate programmes/policies for advocacy.”
Get national library associations involved in advocacy programmes. “As the umbrella bodies for the national LIS community, it is important for national library associations to be implicated in the advocacy programmes of libraries in one way or the other.”
56
IFLA Survey (2013)
(best practices focused on collaboration)
Conclusions
17/09/2014

Learn
advocacy
Experiment
Do

17/09/2014 58
Obrigado pela atenção
Ao vosso dispor
jacalixto2000@gmail.com

17/09/2014
59
Ao vosso dispor

Public library advocacy in Portugal: a tentative approach

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