AASL Preconference
"Transforming Your Program Through Advocacy"
ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans
June 23, 2006
List of Advocacy Web sites
Help from Associations:
AASL Advocacy
"Because Student Achievement IS the Bottom Line,” school library media specialists must promote the library and its programs more than ever. AASL’s ready-to-use resources are designed to help school library media programs launch an advocacy campaign.
The public must be informed about the essential need of school library media specialists and their vital role. This site provides some tools to get you started.
“SLMS has collected resources for you that we feel will be helpful. They are organized here by topic” – general advice, advocacy, proof you matter, handouts, and school libraries and their impact: state studies.
The vague role of school library media specialists has led to decreased funding for the media center. OELMA is advocating at the state level for school library media specialists. This site provides definitions, justifications, related links, and other resources.
The Legislation Committee of PSLA provides resources and links for becoming more involved and active on the state and national level. It helps you track the upcoming issues, referendums, and elections, as well as how Representatives and Senators have voted in the past.
WEMA lobbies for policies and funding in support of school libraries, public education, public libraries, and educational technology. The 25, annotated links provide a variety of resources and tools available to help make a difference.
Help from State Level Organizations:
This site provides Web-based resources to assist school library media specialists in advocating for themselves, their centers, and their programs. Resources include brochures, PowerPoint presentations, and articles.
California recently implemented the School and Library Improvement Block Grant. This toolkit offers resources to help educate, influence and inform site councils of the importance of school libraries.
This site provides three forms of a brochure, “Your School’s Team Deserves a Star Player,” outlining the vital role of the “professional teacher-librarian.”This brochure emphasizes how important it is to include a teacher-librarian as an instructional partner on the school teaching staff. It is critical to build and maintain a quality reading and resource collection and to team with the classroom teachers to guarantee that information and communication technologies (ICT) literacy is taught within the learning process and not in isolation.
February 2005, vol. 18, no. 3 issue is focused on school libraries.
This site emphasizes the significance of action for school library systems. It provides an informative, factual introduction and many resources including strategies, how to contact decision makers, brochures and flyers, and advocacy links.
“Information Power and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology provided the foundation for the development of the Linking Libraries and Academic Achievement (LLAA) initiative.” Its goal is “to provide guidance to school library media specialists in the development of best practices for teaching and learning.” The site includes an overview, instructional materials, and more.
By clicking on the “Toolkit” link you will find a toolkit of resources and links. It includes five topics: advocacy, listservs, professional journals, reading lists and resources.
Help from the UK:
“This site supports Schools Library Services and school librarians in England and helps them assert the importance of their role and the significance of the school library.” It defines advocacy, discusses how advocacy can benefit you, and provides case studies and a toolkit.
“This site is mainly intended for professional librarians working in schools in the UK,” but provides links from the English-speaking world. It was created to be a “source of support with organizations and links to useful resources and research reports” for school library media specialists.
Help from Various Academic Courses:
Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson
Each school library needs a well-defined advocacy program. “A well-developed advocacy program markets, promotes, and rallies people around the mission, issues, and philosophies of your school library media program. As a result, advocacy must be based on specific needs and supported with evidence.” This site provides resources to help you develop your advocacy program.
Administrators can be the greatest ally of a school library media specialist. Mansfield University offers a one-hour graduate course designed to help administrator understand and better support the library, its programs and the SLMS. The site also provides research, compelling studies and other information.
“The purpose of this site is to provide resources for school library media specialists engaged in advocacy efforts - some of those immediate, but most effective only over a long period of time.” This site also invites you to email advocacy resources to them.
Help from Various Sources:
This site provides an excellent bibliography for resources on advocacy. Some are linked to the resource. Each resource includes a helpful annotation.
In response to a request for information on marketing the school library AskEric provided several Internet Sites with annotations and links, an electronic discussion group, two organizations and the citations to 14 hits in the database.
This site provides four articles written by Joyce Valenza.
This site offers more than 30 downloadable files in a variety of formats including brochures and documents, bookmarks, posters, PowerPoint presentations and more.
This article is written to school media specialists whose jobs are in jeopardy. The article offers practical, step-by-step advice and additional information.
This site contains many types of resources for school librarians. Advocacy is covered under the topic of Library Promotion. Each resource is linked and includes an annotation.
Websites selected by Carl Harvey Library Media Specialist, North Elementary School, Noblesville, IN
Annotated by Judy Crist, Kent State University Graduate Assistant.
May 2006