In late 2017, the Public Awareness Committee sent out a Championing Children’s Services survey to ALSC members. We will be using the data to create a Toolkit later in 2018, but we would like to share some of the fascinating results with you now!
Below you will find some of the most common answers to our survey questions.
- Where do your library championing conversations take place?
- Inside my library
- Elevator
- At a community meeting
- All of the above
- Other
It’s no surprise that 47% of survey respondents said that their library championing
conversations take place at all of the above locations! For those who selected “other,” we
created this wordle:
- What is your biggest barrier to promoting your library to elected officials?
- Time to prepare
- Time away from library
- Knowledge about what to say
- Knowledge about who to speak to
- Making contacts
- Support from your library
- Figuring out where to start
- Other
The most common barriers librarians face include:
- Figuring out where to start
- What to say
- Time away from library
- Permission to speak to elected officials
- Confidence boost needed
- List the top three things you wish others knew about children’s librarianship.
The majority of responses fit into six themes:
- The value of early childhood education/early literacy and the role we play within it
- That providing children’s services involves so much more than books
- The skills/education required to provide children’s services
- That children’s services strategically tackles important issues and is focused on positive community outcomes
- That children’s librarians are child advocates
- That children’s librarians build partners that foster better lives for youth
We look forward to sharing our Toolkit with you later in 2018!
Stephanie Saba, a Senior Librarian at the San Mateo County Libraries, is writing this post on behalf of the Public Awareness Committee. She can be reached at sabas@smcl.org .