Libraries Matter Campaign

SLA Advocacy Campaign to Raise the Profile of Libraries
presented by the SLA Advocacy Committee

Summary

The Saskatchewan Library Association proposes a marketing and advocacy campaign to raise the profile of libraries. The Libraries Matter campaign started in 2008 when we presented this document at the Saskatchewan Legislature during Saskatchewan Libraries Week. However, the campaign is meant to extend beyond that date. It is an initiative designed to excite new kinds of library promotion. SLA hopes to build province-wide momentum by suggesting ideas that can be adopted by library systems large and small, northern, southern, regional, or urban. By raising the profile of libraries through various activities, the SLA hopes to show the general public and our funding bodies just how much libraries matter.

Libraries and Our Patrons Deserve Better

Imagine your library as a center of activity within your community: crowds of people come to borrow materials, take your information literacy classes, visit your website from home, and are drawn to the library as a meeting place. At the 2008 SLA conference, Fred Kent gave a presentation on place-making, during which he discussed how relatively simple things can turn a library into a significant part of the community. Is your library there yet . . . ?

Library leaders and staff need to think differently about what approaches we are taking in promoting libraries. The public deserves well-funded libraries and access to better resources which can better support the many needs of the people of this province, such as resources for family literacy, employment preparation, and educational achievement. Libraries deserve more widespread acknowledgement of the important societal role they play. The social and economic benefits of having a library, whether it serves a hospital, an educational institution, a city, a town, a corporation, or an isolated First Nations community, need to be measured. We know that what we do in libraries is critical to the healthy functioning of our society, but we cannot assume our role is obvious to our patrons, or to governments which make decisions affecting libraries, or to those who do not use libraries. Since library funding has not kept up with inflation over the last few years, our silence makes us complicit. We must spread our messages promoting the value of libraries as far and wide as possible.

Therefore, the Saskatchewan Library Association proposes a campaign to raise the profile of libraries in Saskatchewan. It was initially planned as a year-long effort but one that should continue into the future. We are planning a multi-pronged, organic, grass-roots campaign to keep libraries in front of the public and funders.

Libraries Matter

The SLA does not intend to dictate in what advocacy and promotional activities Saskatchewan libraries participate. SLA intends to lend support, provide information, and encourage cooperative action. One way we will facilitate this is by building a Libraries Matter Toolkit and Libraries Matter Blog into the new SLA website.

The SLA hopes that libraries can build on existing promotional activities and grow momentum for the Libraries Matter campaign throughout the year. This campaign will offer a concerted roll-out of large- and small-scale suggested activities from all angles and for libraries of all types. We hope that with little or no cost, we can encourage an organic kind of growth in the awareness of library issues. The object is to put and keep libraries in front of the public, the decision-makers, and the funders.

Luckily for us, as Malcolm Gladwell states in his excellent book, The Tipping Point, “it is possible to do a lot with a little” (p. 255). He compares the spread of ideas, messages, and behaviours to a virus (p. 7), and he stresses that “starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas,” on critical places and people (p. 255). So think of those places where people are receptive to the message you want to get across and find your community’s “Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen” (p. 256), as Gladwell refers to them, to get the word out.

The following is a preliminary list of strategies to get started on your Library Matters campaign. Visit the Libraries Matter Toolkit and Libraries Matter Blog on the SLA website for more strategies and ideas, and to share your successes and ideas.

Remember, you can do a lot with a little.

Gladwell, Malcolm. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000.

Suggested Campaign Strategies

Pick and choose what will work for your library system. Discuss those activities among your library managers and staff. Share other ideas and successes on the new SLA Libraries Matter Blog. We encourage all SLA members to share suggestions in the blog. Look for further suggestions and advocacy support on the new SLA website in the coming months.

1. There are many daily library activities that are directed at the knowledge economy. Look for opportunities to showcase that libraries provide access to:

  • Economic data
  • Business information
  • Job hunting resources
  • Classes, public lectures, committee meetings
  • Health information
  • Tourism resources:

    • - Travel resources
    - Internet access for visitors, free of charge

  • Web resources – on your library site as well as links to external sites
  • Research assistance
  • Family information and resources:

    • - Early learning resources
    - Adult basic education

  • Literacy skills
  • Interlibrary loans
  • Lifelong learning
  • Resources to support formal learning for students:

    • - Post-secondary
    - Secondary school
    - Primary school
    - Technical school
    - Adult education, etc.

  • Information literacy training to participate in the information economy
  • Computer literacy training

2. Make your library’s presence known:

  • Send greetings of welcome to a new minister/city councillor/reeve, etc. when one is appointed. This is one way of building relationships with government. Keeping in touch with existing government representatives, without asking for anything, builds a useful civility in a funder/fundee relationship.
  • Find other ways to make connections, build relationships. What advertising does your library typically do? Are there ways to expand your advertising activities?
  • Consider marketing avenues that are low-cost or cost-free. Be creative. Guerilla marketing is a type of low budget marketing that uses imagination instead of money to put an idea forward: e.g., inexpensive buttons with a catchy slogan; chalk drawings on the sidewalk with your message. If it is fun, it could catch on and develop a life of its own.
  • Your library could commit to increasing its presence at community events by 100% by summer 2009. One library could challenge another library.
  • Spread your message to friends, family. Two-thirds of Canadians have library cards, but many are irregular users. Users, as well as irregular users and non-users, are often unfamiliar with many library services.
  • ***Share what you are doing – the new SLA Libraries Matter blog will be a forum for this kind of information transfer. Sharing successes and what does not work will be helpful to all. A major focus of the campaign is to get us all thinking about how better to promote libraries.

3. Your campaign may need a slogan. We suggest Libraries Matter, but you are free to choose something that will work for you. You could use the ALA “@ your library®” brand or start fresh. Here are just a few suggestions:

It’s all @ your library®
The world @ your library®
Lifelong learning @ your library®
There’s more @ your library®
Think @ your library®
Free to be yourself @ your library®
It’s free @ your library®
Learn @ your library®