Thing 16: Advocacy

When anyone mentions the advocacy word in the context of libraries, those of us in the profession perhaps most commonly think about the high profile advocacy campaigns for public libraries. Groups such as Voices for the Library do a fantastic job of advocating for the public library, hopefully preventing public libraries reaching endangered species territory.

But advocacy and libraries doesn’t only apply to public libraries.  I hope that is a well known fact and that all of us who work in any type of library or information service are aware of the importance of advocacy.  It is essential to shout about what you do and why it is important, to make the customer understand realise the value you have to offer and to make the powers above understand that the service you offer needs to be valued.

Demonstrating Value

I’ve only been in my current role for a month but I’m already very conscious of the need to advocate for a library service such as this which is only a very small part of a huge organisation.  I work in the archive of a television company, part of a team which forms a larger department responsible for managing and supplying content owned by the organisation.  We are an essential part of the business; without the service provided by the department programmes produced by the company wouldn’t get to the people who need them when they are needed.   I’ve not been here long but I’m already finding myself having conversations about what can be done to stress our worth to  stakeholders.

I’m not entirely sure what this entails or how yet.

Is it simply a case of continuing to provide an excellent service which gives people what they want or this this not enough?  There is the argument that if you are paid to do a job and you do it well then that’s great but does doing what you are supposed to deserve such a pat on the back from others. A thank you and knowing you are valued is still nice though. Do we need to take steps to make sure people realise that without the excellent service their jobs would be a lot more difficult?  Is this where always going that bit further to ensure people really notice your effort comes in to play?

Being Visible

One of my main concerns so far is visibility.  You can’t make people see how important you are if nobody is aware of your existence in the first place. We are a faceless department as is common in large multi-site organisations. We deal with most of our users by email and telephone. Only a small number of people come down to our offices to pick up tapes which they have requested  This is simply the nature of how we work, but if you are just an email address or a voice at the end of a phone, how do you establish connections with your users? As with many information services working to support businesses, we are an essential part of the business function but many people probably don’t realise it.

So what can I do to make myself and my role more visible?   I’d love to hear about any strategies others have for increasing their visibility in the workplace.

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