"Advocacy is the act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea, or policy (American Heritage Dictionary). According to the American Library Association, advocacy is "the process of turning passive support into educated action by stakeholders." 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." (Annette Lamb & Larry Johnson)
The WEMAtter Toolkit provides information to help library media specialists show the connection between their programs, resources, and services and student achievement to advocate for their programs. By addressing various local stakeholder groups, it complements the Legislative Advocacy Resources on lobbying locally, statewide, and nationally found on the WEMA website.
WEMAtter Workshop Resources
WEAC Powerpoint Presentation (No Child Left Behind at Your Library)
This sites provides:
- Research from state and local studies showing the impact of library programs on student success
- State and national standards as well as links to standardized test information that can be used to show the connection of information and technology literacy skills to content-area learning
- Ready-to-use resources to use as models for your own letters, testimony, brochures, posters, PowerPoint presentations, and other public relation tools
- Data collection tools to collect local data to show the impact of your program
- @your library resources from ALA and AASL
Need some background information to get going?
For a good overview of the topic of advocacy, see Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson's unit on advocacy for their course on school library administration for IUPUI. It provides definitions, examples, and useful links. Courtney Huf in The Advocacy Trade provides levels to begin your advocacy efforts no matter how long you have been in a school library.
WEMAtter Toolkit || Research || Standards || Resources ||
Data Collection || @YourLibrary