{"id":14058,"date":"2016-09-19T00:01:30","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T04:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=14058"},"modified":"2016-09-19T14:26:45","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T18:26:45","slug":"highlighting-advocacy-resources-take-action-libraries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/highlighting-advocacy-resources-take-action-libraries\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlighting Advocacy Resources: Take Action for Libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the coming months the ALSC Advocacy and Legislation committee will be highlighting resources which may be useful to you in your advocacy efforts. Today&#8217;s resources is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/offices\/cro\/legislationandadvocacy\/takeactionlibraries\">Take Action for Libraries<\/a>, found right on the ALA website.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Incredibly, this site was new to me. A fellow committee member mentioned it may be useful to youth services library staff and after spending a few minutes looking through what it has to offer, I have to agree! These are the parts I personally found particularly useful:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Map: Click on your state on the map to be directed to local advocacy resources. I&#8217;m in WA state so I clicked there first where I found information about my state&#8217;s Library Legislation Day in addition to statistics and reports (sadly, these were quite out of date). I also navigated to Oregon to find a fabulously curated site with up to date information for all kinds of issues affecting libraries. Because a lot has been happening with school libraries in Oregon lately they have highlighted that issue. Because these pages are not focused on library youth services you may have to click around a bit to find information relevant to youth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How to Contact Your Representatives: &#8220;I know what I want my legislators to do, now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/offices\/how-contact-your-representatives\">how do I tell them<\/a>?&#8221; The links below the map include this information in addition to how to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/offices\/cro\/getinvolved\/saveyourlibraries\">get involved<\/a> with advocacy in general.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/cqrcengage.com\/ala\/home\">ALA Legislative Action Center<\/a>: This site also includes representative contact information as well as resources specific to your state (clicking on these will take you to the same place as clicking on your state on the map). You will also find information on specific issues at the Action Center.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t used any of these resources for advocacy yet, but they have helped me to feel a little less overwhelmed about advocacy. Knowing that there are resources in my state and that I can get involved at a more local level is a relief. IT is also handy to have more information about hot button issues close at hand to review before contacting my representatives, if necessary.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There are many levels to this site, and I barely scratched the surface in this post. As someone fairly unfamiliar with navigating the world of advocacy and legislation I find the resources here to be just enough to digest. For any of you who wear all the hats in your library, this page may be extremely helpful. However, because of the non-youth focus, for me, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/everyday-advocacy\/\">Everyday Advocacy<\/a> website will more frequently provide me with what I need.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tell us what you think! Do you use this resource? If so, which part do you find most useful?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Kendra Jones is Co-Chair of the ALSC Advocacy and Legislation Committee and Youth &amp; Family Services Coordinator for Timberland Regional Library in Washington State.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the coming months the ALSC Advocacy and Legislation committee will be highlighting resources which may be useful to you in your advocacy efforts. Today&#8217;s resources is Take Action for Libraries, found right on the ALA website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-advocacy-and-legislation-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}