United for Libraries to present ‘Your Library in Their Language: Strategies for Creating Library Advocates Among Business Leaders in Your Community’

BRYN MAWR, Pennsylvania — United for Libraries will present “Your Library in Their Language: Strategies for Creating Library Advocates Among Business Leaders in Your Community” on Sunday, June 24, 9 to 10 a.m., at the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.

Building strong partnerships and effective collaboration with the business and political leaders in your community is a critical element in advocating for your library. Support from these leaders adds to your credibility, authority, and leadership and amplifies your voice.

We know our library's impact, how many people we serve, how popular our programs are, and how well-received our collections are, so to us supporting the library should be a no-brainer. But these standard library measurement statistics are not as meaningful to those outside the library.

To ensure support from leaders and influencers who are outside a library’s inner circle we need to speak differently. We need to articulate our impact in terms these other audiences understand and connect our impact to issues or topics they care about most. For a local business leader, it might be the chance to extend the reach of their brand or to deepen their available talent pool; for a local politician, their hot-button issues may be support for job seekers and the small businesses in their community or extended support for local school children. Whatever the focus is for your potential partner or supporter, your success depends on your ability to align your library's story to their point of view.

This session will help attendees to develop fluency and comfort in using the language of ALA's “The E’s of Libraries®” in their community and political interaction and sharing that message in everyday conversations with people outside the library profession.

Speakers:

• Heather Blaine Wiegand, Director, Strategic Accounts and Business Developments for Consortia and Special Markets, Gale
• Skip Dye, VP, Library Marketing and, Digital Sales, Penguin Random House
• Ann Joslin, State Librarian, Idaho Commission for Libraries
• Steven Potter, CEO & Library Director, Mid-Continent Public Library
• Alan Fishel, Partner, Arent Fox

The program will be held in Morial Convention Center, 386-387. For more information about United for Libraries programs at the ALA Annual Conference, visit http://www.ala.org/united/events_conferences/annual/2018.

To register for the ALA Annual conference, visit www.alaannual.org.

If you need help in making your case to attend, these resources can help.

Ways to stay in touch and get updates include: Annual Conference website, Twitter (@alaac and #alaac18) Facebook Events, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.

United for Libraries: The Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations, is a division of the American Library Association with approximately 4,000 personal and group members representing hundreds of thousands of library supporters. United for Libraries supports those who govern, promote, advocate, and fundraise for libraries, and brings together library trustees, advocates, friends, and foundations into a partnership that creates a powerful force for libraries in the 21st century. To join, please visit www.ala.org/united or call (800) 545-2433, ext. 2161.