Collaborative Library Stories

Adovcacy is a story. It is a true story that reminds us and tells our stakeholders and the world who we are as educators, what we value, and the role our programs play in education. Our advocacy story helps us frame our daily work and long-term goals; it helps us set priorities because our story encompasses what is most import to us. Developing an advocacy story that reflects our work and speaks to our stakeholders is an essential activity for school librarians.

CONNECTING WITH YOUR OWN PASSION

An advocacy story first and foremost must be authentic. It must come from our passion for learning and teaching through the school librarianship. It must encompass our personal values as well as the core values of the library profession. School librarians can begin to compose a library story first by looking into the heart of our work. How is school librarianship related to your passion?

Finding your element “is a two-way journey: an inward one to explore what lies within you and an outward journey to explore opportunities in the world around you” (Robinson 2013, 5). Many school librarians come to library work via their careers as classroom teachers. Our personal commitment to literacy, learning, and other people’s children aligns our work with our passion. This commitment sets us apart from some of our fellow citizens who fail to understand that the well-being and education of every child is not just an altruistic pipedream; it is a self-serving one as well. Our futures are entwined with the futures of the children and youth we serve.

In his book Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life, Sir Ken Robinson notes that while our aptitudes (our raw potential) matters, our passion matters more (2013, 102). What is passion? Passion comes from within; it marshals our energy and enthusiasm toward goals and provides us with deep and abiding satisfaction when those goals are achieved. The things we are passionate about spur our desire and commitment to practice and increase our abilities in order to achieve our passions. Sir Ken Robinson notes that passion is also a form of love. Our passions bring us happiness and give meaning to our lives.

When you talk about your work as a school librarian, what do you say you “love” about it? Serving as a teacher leader who connects with classroom teachers to achieve a shared impact on students’ learning? Watching the light bulb turn on when a learner “gets it”? Helping learners explore their own interests—explorations that may set them on a lifelong learning journey? Does your passion for learning give meaning to your life? Does it make you happy?

ADVOCACY STATEMENT

Crafting an advocacy statement based on your passion is the next step. Your statement or one-sentence theme is an affirmation of your intended outcomes for your service as a school librarian. Your statement should include a meme or slogan that can be repeated on all library publicity and promotional documents. Here’s my personal example, “Building a culture of collaboration @your library®.” For me, this meme is the pathway to leadership and provides the context for success for students and educators. The meme, “Building a Culture of Collaboration @your library®” can stand on its own and become a personal and professional motto for my work. In a School Library Monthly article on advocacy, Debra Kachel uses the term “position statement” and provides readers with strategies for crafting it and developing talking points with a team of advocates (2014).

Similar to mine, your advocacy or position statement may require building collaborative relationships with others. Finding your kinship group is an essential component of being able to enact your passion and achieve your goals. Who among your faculty shares your passion and commitment? These people will provide you with inspiration and guidance as you stretch yourself to further develop your skills. Your kinship group will understand your personal advocacy meme and statement, and you will understand theirs. Through reciprocal mentorship, you will help each other reach for your goals.

Along with your kinship group, you can co-create an outstanding library program and lay the essential foundation for an advocacy story. For your story to ring true, others must be able to see your passion in action. Remember: Everyone is from Missouri. “Show me” is not just a catchy phrase. Lofty goals and idle talk are not the stuff of successful programs or advocacy campaigns. While our kinship group supports us, it takes a village to enact the kinds of whole-school, whole-district, or whole-profession transformation we seek.

MAKING THE STORY CONTAGIOUS

School librarians know that our best advocates are the students, teachers, parents, and administrators with whom we work. Involving others in developing the library advocacy story is a best practice. Once we have codeveloped the program and our advocacy story, it is essential we repeat our story often and spread it far and wide. In short, we must make our story contagious. In his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger writes, “Any product, idea, or behavior can be contagious” (2013, 206). How can we make the expectation that school library programs are non-negotiable components of 21st-century education a reality beyond our own school or district? How can we make professional school librarians must-have members of every preK-12 school faculty in the nation or in the world?

One possible strategy is to crowdsource our advocacy campaigns. Rather than reaching only our immediate stakeholders, we can pool our advocacy efforts at the district, state, national, and international levels to disseminate a clear and unambiguous story that tells how school libraries and the work of school librarians are the head, heart, and hands of teaching and learning. Our knowledge, passion, and skills provide teachers and students with the resources and support they need for success. With almost 8,000 views, the Principals Know: School Librarians Are the Heart of the School crowdsourced advocacy video is one example (http://youtu.be/bihGT7LoBP0). Read about how this advocacy video came about on the Demco blog post by Janet Nelson (http://ideas.demco.com/blog/principals-perspectives-value-school-librarians).

ADVOCACY FOR EXCELLENCE

Our advocacy stories should be first and foremost about excellence. Holding ourselves accountable for excellence, we can help increase our own effectiveness as educators and, through coteaching, improve our classroom teacher colleagues’ instructional expertise as well. Together, school librarians, classroom teachers, administrators, and families can help our youth develop the necessary critical thinking skills they need to be innovators, problem solvers, and producers of new knowledge. Developing excellence in school library programs and a credible collective advocacy story is a path to sustaining the vitality, integrity, and the future of our profession.