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Building Bridges for Better Advocacy
Tag: advocacy
Planning A Year of Advocacy: Month by Month
What better time than a new year to look at professional goals and see how you can incorporate advocacy into every month of the year.
The Importance of Pronouns
Author and illustrator Maya Christina Gonzalez is known for her award-winning bilingual (English/Spanish) books such as My Colors, My World and I Know the River Loves Me. But this Progressive Educator and Independent Scholar/Researcher has also delved into the world of pronouns. Call Me Tree was written without any gender identifying pronouns and she has since written substantially on the topic as well as writing and illustrating three children’s books on the topic — They She He Me: Free to Be!, The Gender Wheel, and They, She, He Easy as ABC. I asked Gonzalez to tell us about the importance of pronouns and that resulted in the following conversation. Maya, why are pronouns so important in creating a gender-inclusive environment? I believe, as we go through these changing times, keeping track of the big picture helps us make important connections and gives us a guide to steer by. When it…
The 2022 Intellectual Freedom Landscape
As 2022 draws to a close, it’s interesting—and important—to consider the impact of last month’s elections on issues of intellectual freedom, particularly on the local level. While this will vary widely from community to community, a good place to stay up to date on these across the country, and other current issues, is ALA’s Intellectual Freedom News, which is updated weekly here. It offers news organized into categories: Some perspectives on intellectual freedom issues being affected by recent elections are presented in yesterday’s New York Times article on the current “Surge in Book Bans.” If you experience a challenge at your organization, please remember to share information about it with the Office of Intellectual Freedom. As ALA says “Reporting censorship and challenges to materials, resources, and services is vital to developing the best resources to defend library resources and to protect against challenges before they happen.” It takes all of…
Advocacy (for yourself and the library) in Difficult Times
In 2021, Amanda Jones was named School Library Journal School Librarian of the Year. A little more than one year later and Ms. Jones is now embroiled in legal actions due to online harassment related to her work in promoting the right to read and diverse library collections. The lead article in the November/December 2022 issue of American Libraries, “When It Happens To You,” is about what to do when you get caught in the middle of a book challenge. It’s all well and good to say “stand up and fight for the right to read”! But that is often easier said than done and, in these divisive times, can be very scary. Read on for some tools we hope will help in this situation.
ALSC Institute – Overwhelmed by Underserved Communities: Participant Responses
Members of our committee (Georgette Spratling, Melody Leung, Tammie Benham) presented at last month’s ALSC Institute! We showcased our toolkit for Getting Started with Underserved Communities Thank you to everyone who came to our workshops. We were able to learn about barriers our fellow library practitioners face when working with underserved communities as well as gauge where we all are in our practice. Below is a summary of participant responses from our collective reflection. The questions asked align with an advocacy framework we presented to help empower library staff to work with underserved communities. If you have your own responses, we’d love to see them in the comments below! What is the most overwhelming part about working with underserved communities? What underserved communities do you want to work with? (Check out our toolkits for some examples or inspiration) Imagine a real or hypothetical program/outreach/initiative? Are there barriers in your organization…
What’s Your Advocacy Passion?
After celebrating the patriotic holidays of summer, the end of July is a perfect time to reflect on service and advocacy. Librarians can use what we are passionate about to make libraries and services richer and more diverse. The ALSC Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee members have many advocacy passions. If you haven’t discovered yours yet, check out some of ours below: •Bilingual Services and Programming for Spanish Speakers— From bilingual storytimes to Spanish language collections to advocating for services, the place to learn about services to Spanish-speakers is REFORMA, one of ALA’s National Associations of Librarians of Color that anyone can join. •Digital Literacy— The Public Library Association is a great resource for digital literacy and they have created DigitalLearn.org as a one stop shop for teaching digital literacy. •Embedded Librarianship— Both academic and public libraries can benefit from embedded librarians, in online classes and in their communities. The…
Balancing Advocacy With Self Care
Advocating for initiatives, programs, services, and outreach to underserved populations can be emotionally and physically draining. It is the extra effort we do to lead with equity in mind. Are you overwhelmed by advocacy? Read our blog post about advocacy tips. Today, our 2021-2022 members of the Library Service to Underserved Children and Their Caregivers Committee would like to celebrate the end of the committee year with self care tips and reflections. Do you have some tips to share too? Feel free to use the comments to add your own!