The Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee didn\u2019t formally meet at ALA Annual in Chicago this year but there were many opportunities for public awareness and advocacy throughout the conference experience that I am rounding up here with links to ALSC bloggers fabulous write-ups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mental health is important: in the workplace, in personal life and for your patrons. While there\u2019s much debate on how much mental health services libraries should provide- there\u2019s no question that mental health resources are important for all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
View Lacy Wolfe\u2019s blog<\/a> about how graphic novels are \u201cmedicine\u201d for mental health and Jaime Eastman\u2019s blog posts about building joy <\/a>and taking time for self care.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n When meeting friends old and new at conference, I try to delve beyond the \u201chow are you\/ where do you work,\u201d and ask more pointed questions like, \u201cwhat challenges are you facing right now?\u201d and \u201cis there any way I can support you.\u201d It can be hard to ask these questions when you want to keep the conversation light, but it also helps to hear what people are going through and connect on a deeper professional level. I learned about a colleague working to rewrite policy to be more inclusive for all youth, another colleague working to merge services with less-wealthy libraries in order to share resources and a colleague advocating for better leave in the work place. It\u2019s through these conversations we learn the unique situations are colleagues are facing and how we can strive to support them as a field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s no surprise that many sessions were about standing up against book bans, but that\u2019s not the only issue in libraries right now. As mentioned above, everyone is fighting a different battle. We can work to advocate for our patrons and colleagues by educating ourselves on what is happening and making informed decisions. Christine Sturgeron blogged about fighting misinformation<\/a>, while Lucy Wolfe wrote about authors discussing banned books.<\/a> Jaime Eastman talked about thinking deeper and building a diverse team.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another trend I saw this year was about transforming spaces<\/a>, how you could intentionally make them better and create an early love of libraries and books. From there, looking only at the physical space but at the environment.<\/a> Is this a place children and their caregivers feel safe and welcomed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What issues did you learn about at ALA Annual that we can advocate for in our profession and community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This post addresses the ALSC competencies <\/em>I. Commitment to Client Group and V. Outreach and Advocacy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Emily Mroczek is writing this blog post on behalf of the Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee. She can be reached at emilyrmroczek@gmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee didn\u2019t formally meet at ALA Annual in Chicago this year but there were many opportunities for public awareness and advocacy throughout the conference experience that I am rounding up here with links to ALSC bloggers fabulous write-ups. Mental health is important: in the workplace, in personal life and for your patrons. While there\u2019s much debate on how much mental health services libraries should provide- there\u2019s no question that mental health resources are important for all. View Lacy Wolfe\u2019s blog about how graphic novels are \u201cmedicine\u201d for mental health and Jaime Eastman\u2019s blog posts about building joy and taking time for self care. When meeting friends old and new at conference, I try to delve beyond the \u201chow are you\/ where do you work,\u201d and ask more pointed questions like, \u201cwhat challenges are you facing right now?\u201d and \u201cis there any way I can support…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341,"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":[2043],"tags":[2575,253,107,1801],"class_list":["post-29362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-awareness-and-advocacy-committee","tag-alaac23","tag-advocacy","tag-ala","tag-public-awareness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29362","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\/341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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