What is our call to action?

It’s National Library Month and a great moment to celebrate libraries and how they’ve endured this COVID year and found ways to support our students and teachers!  There are many Twitter hashtags where librarians are sharing stories about their libraries like #TXAsl and #AASL.  But in a recent session(Digital Library Tools) at the Computers in Libraries Conference, Patrick Sweeney from EveryLibrary reminded participants that every celebration of libraries also needs an “ask.”  What do we want people to do if they believe in libraries when […]

TXLA Conference update – Advocacy Tips!

The TXLA conference in Austin last week provided a plethora of learning opportunities for librarians!  I’ll be sharing a few notes over the next two blog posts. First off, I attended a paid preconference – “Use Your Library Voice: Personalizing Advocacy”.  This preconference has the unusual opportunity when the conference is in Austin of taking the attendees to the capitol to actually lobby their legislators at the end of the day.  (While I was unable to do that, I did catch part of the preconference). […]

Advocating for Texas librarians

The Texas Senate has proposed a $5,000 raise for all classroom teachers in Senate Bill 3 (SB3). However, the bill doesn’t include librarians or counselors for this raise.  The Austin Statesman had a good article on the bill today.  Today, several librarians spoke at a committee hearing to advocate for us– asking for librarians to be included in Senate Bill 3.   (Thanks to Nancy Jo Lambert, Jennifer LaBoon, and Sara Stevenson.) However, the bill was still voted out of committee to go before the full […]

Keeping advocacy focused

Tightening budgets in many states and local school districts (including the one in which I live) remind me of the importance of having a focused advocacy message for library positions/technology budgets.   Texas is facing a severe budget shortfall, as is my local city’s school district, and library and technology budgets are on the line with drastic cuts proposed. Last spring I had the opportunity to hear the inspirational Spokane Moms, amazing parent advocates from Spokane who had many insightful suggestions about how to effectively advocate […]