Posts Tagged ‘Advocacy Campaign’
Scooped up
Curating a topic can be as easy as Scoop.it
Here is my first dive into the curating environment with School Library Advocacy
Other topics I follow include:
Digital Citizenship in Schools by Judy O’Connell
SCIS (Schools Cataloguing Information Service) by SCIS
Social Networking for Information Professionals by Judy O’Connell
Student Learning Through School Libraries by Lyn Hay
Check out Joyce Valenza’s post, ‘A few good scoops for us’ where she has categorised a whole set of curated sites.
Advocacy – leverage the network
Strategy 7: Leverage the network
This strategy connects well with strategy 6 – massage the media.
The list of media exposure opportunities listed under strategy 6 help you to link to the professional network, so you are never alone. For example, you can connect into the collective wisdom of professional associations who have information available to help you with your advocacy efforts. Consider checking out some of the following:
ASLA Advocacy page and ALIA Advocacy page
CSLA Toolkit for Advocacy and Action
IFLA School Library Advocacy Kit
Also, don’t be afraid to leverage the social network – Twitter, Facebook, Ning,LinkedIn, etc. Your message needs to go viral. Identify those who share your goals and those who are willing to support your efforts, and then make the connections.
If you have any other professional networks that you tap into for advocacy ideas and support, please let me know. It would be great to provide access to a comprehensive list so that we really do not have to feel that we are doing this alone.
Advocacy – massage the media
Strategy 6: Massage the media
Newsworthy events and photo opportunities are all around us. For example:
- Author visits
- Special events such as Book Week
- New lunchtime activities in the school library
- Displays of resources or student work
- New library or different layout
Your media might be the school newsletter or the school library wiki. Make the most of whatever communication channels that are available to you.
When preparing the story ask yourself the questions – Why do I care? Why should anybody care? This will help you to focus on the key message. Your story might provide a list of benefits, solve a problem, outline easy steps to achieve a task, or simply inspire teachers, students and parents.
If you are wanting to get outside media coverage then it is best to check with your school administration as to the correct protocols. The same newsworthy events and photo opportunities could be of interest to your local community and a way of promoting the school and the library.
If you are not sure what events and activities to incorporate in your media exposure then take a look at the following:
- EdNA school events calendar – The calendar includes significant Australian and international days, weeks, years and decades, as well as other events related to celebrations, health, education, training, careers, culture and sport.
- Safer Internet Day (February)
- Library Lovers Day (14 February)
- Library & Information Week (May)
- National Simultaneous Storytime (May)
- Children’s Book Council of Australia Book Week (August)
- National Year of Reading 2012
If you have used other ways to capture and share newsworthy events for your school library then please leave a comment.
Advocacy – remarkable stories
Strategy 5: Find remarkable stories
Stories are a magic way to support a key message. Storytelling is traditionally the way to pass on important information from generation to generation. Stories can be told in words, images and sounds.
The combination of words, images and sounds through video is an extremely powerful way to convey a key message. Doron Isaacs, Equal Education Coordinator, is interviewed on the “One School, One Library, One Librarian” campaign.
There are quite a number of YouTube videos that support this South African campaign with many students and young people featuring in the stories.
Joe McHugh and Connie Williams, in cooperation with the California School Library Association, collected stories and published them in an audio journal – http://www.csla.net/audio/
Capturing the “student voice” is an absolute must. The findings from the Student Learning through Ohio School Libraries Research Project provide you with access to samples of qualitative responses and additional comments by the students.
The replication of the research in Australian schools, Student Learning through Australian School Libraries project, provides samples of comments by students on the following:
- The library as place
- Access to school library facilities
- Provision of extended hours
- The school library as central to resource-based and inquiry learning
- Students value help finding quality information
- Importance of the teacher-librarian’s instructional intervention
- The school library supporting knowledge construction
- The school library as production facility
- The school library’s contribution to student academic achievement
- The school library building student confidence
- The school library as learning laboratories
The remarkable stories usually take on the style of writing of “once I was lost…now I am found”.
Advocacy – source quotable quotes
Strategy 4: Source quotable quotes
The use of a quote can have a significant impact on the reader. It can leave them with something substantial to think about. You can use a quote to add to your email signature, fill a space in a newsletter, post on a blog or tweet, use as the opening statement for an article….or on a T-shirt like the quote immediately below.
“Cutting libraries during a recession is like cutting hospitals during a plague” – Eleanor Crumblehulme. This one became the slogan on a T-shirt – http://www.cafepress.ca/soullesstees.440929848
On 20th December 2010, the Business Plan for the Australian National Broadband Network was released. Professor Paddy Nixon, Digital Futures Advisory Council , during The 7.30 Report interview, stated, “Digital literacy, in its broadest sense, is now as important as being able to read and write and to do your sums”. [Broadband business plan - http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s3097939.htm]
“A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life”. – Henry Ward Beecher
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrywardb383333.html
Here are some web sites to visit to capture library quotes:
Famous Library Quotes and Quotations
It is also appreciated when those in government positions make positive statements - For example, with the announcement of the Australian House of Representatives Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in Australian Schools on 18 March 2010, the committee chair, Ms Sharon Bird, MP, stated “Teacher librarians make a significant contribution to the school community in a number of ways, including teaching information literacy skills and providing access to information and resources to facilitate learning”.
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/edt/schoollibraries/media.htm
With the relaunch of the inquiry, following the outcome of the federal elections, the new committee chair, Ms Amanda Rishworth, MP, stated, “Teacher librarians make a significant contribution in our schools and we look forward to sharing our findings on how to enhance this valuable community resource.” (House of Representatives – Email alert service, Thursday 25 November 2010)
What’s your favourite quotable quote? Has a student or teacher made a statement that has really stuck in your mind?
Advocacy – gather startling facts
Strategy 3: Gather startling facts (and statements)
With this step it is possible to incorporate step 2 (capture killer statistics).
For example, “In this survey 86 (12.518%) of the schools reported an annual library budget of less than $1000. A further 113 (16.448%) schools reported an annual budget of less than $5000. In all nearly a third of the survey participants (28.996%) received less than $5000 for their school libraries. Across the whole survey group 45.123% of schools received less than $10,000 as their annual budget.” (2008, http://www.chs.ecu.edu.au/portals/ASLRP/report/libraries/annual-budgets.html)
As above, try and support the fact or statement by including the source, this way it is possible to avoid the “feel good” statements.
Here are some other examples –
“Students who know how best to summarise information that they read can perform much harder reading tasks, on average, than those who do not. Students also perform better when they know which strategies help them to understand and remember information, and by adopting strategies to guide their own learning.” OECD (2010), PISA 2009 at a Glance, OECD Publishing, p. 72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264095298-en
The statement could be used in the context of promoting school library programs that focus on developing reading and literacy capabilities of students as well as the integration of information literacy programs.
“Increasing literacy and numeracy skills had a positive, statistically significant effect on both labour force participation and hourly wages. Thus, from a policy perspective, if people’s literacy and numeracy skills can be improved, then they will tend to achieve better labour market outcomes.”
Shomos, A. 2010, Links Between Literacy and Numeracy Skills and Labour Market Outcomes, Productivity Commission Staff Working Paper, Melbourne, August, p. 58. (Note: This paper utilises data from a 2006 survey on the literacy and numeracy skills of the Australian adult population. See the statistics in a previous post http://www.schoollibrarymanagement.com/advocacy-statistics/).
This statement would support the role of the school library in the development of literacy capabilities for every student from an early age through to the final years of formal schooling. For Australian teacher-librarians, the connection with the National Assessment Program for Literacy And Numeracy (NAPLAN) is crucial (http://www.naplan.edu.au/).
The following statement comes from The 2010 Horizon Report: Australia-New Zealand Edition –
“The need for formal instruction in key new skills, including information literacy, visual literacy, and technological literacy, poses a continuing challenge to educational programs.” Johnson, L., Smith, R., Levine, A., & Haywood, K. (2010). The 2010 Horizon Report: Australia–New Zealand Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium, p. 5.
http://www.nmc.org/publications/2010-horizon-anz-report
This statement continues to be reported in the Horizon Reports with different variations. But, the key message is there is a very strong need for the teaching of information and digital information literacy skills in schools. Educators and policy decision makers need to seriously consider how this is can be effectively delivered to every student. We have a huge equity issue here that needs to be addressed and teacher-librarians should be very interested in taking up this cause.
So, what startling facts (and statements) have you been able to gather over the years? I’m sure teachers and students have made statements about the service of the school library that could be captured and used (with permission, of course). Even the principal may have made a statement along the lines of “the quality of the school library has a direct impact on enrolments.”
Advocacy – capture killer statistics
Strategy 2: Capture killer statistics
Stating statistics can really get people to take some notice.
Recently, at an international conference in my closing remarks for a keynote speaker, I made the statement that 46% of Australians are illiterate. This certainly sent out a buzz amongst the delegates and during the morning break I had a number of folk asking me where this had come from. The statistic comes from the Australian Bureau of Statistics – Adult Literacy & Life Skills Survey, Summary Results, 2006. This statistic relates to prose literacy, which means 46% cannot read a timetable or a newspaper, or fill out a form.
One group, National Year of Reading 2012, have really leveraged this by putting a different spin on the statistic. On their flyer (available from their website) they state:
“Can you read this?
Then you’re one of the 54% of Australians who are prose literate. You’re in the majority – but only just.”
They have used the killer statistic to promote their 2012 event.
Australian has over 7,000 primary schools and under the P21 element of the Australian Government’s Building the Education Revolution, libraries were very popular projects.
(Data from Australian Government Building the Education Revolution Implementation Taskforce Interim Report, 6 August 2010)
What does this graph say about how much schools appreciate having a school library? Does the school library become the “showcase real estate” of the school? I wonder how many parents like to see the school library before they enrol their child? Or how many dignitaries are taken to the school library as part of the school visit?
Based on the Australian Schools Census 2009 and the BER interim report this would mean that 40 to 45 percent of primary schools choose to have either a refurbished or new school library built under the Australian Government’s Building the Education Revolution.
It is also possible for you to capture killer statistics at your school that can make people take notice.
If you are using a booking system for your time or for the school library facilities this information can become very useful. For example, if your time is booked by a classroom teacher and you multiply this by the number of students in that class, then effectively you are engaging with “x” number of students during their learning experience with you in the library. Then, work that out for the week and you might even surprise yourself. Do the same with the number of teachers you might work with during a week and work out the percentage of teachers across the whole school with whom you have collaborated in the development of classroom programs.
I love the quirky statistics that challenge me to think about how I could use the information in a different way. For example, this one from the Sydney Morning Herald – “The number of fixed phone lines has remained at 10.7 million since June 2000, but the number of mobile connections has increased from eight million to 24.2 million over the same period.”
Now, with this growth of mobile devices I can link this into the need for schools to provide support for our young people to become responsible global digital citizens. Here is an opportunity to promote what the school library does by way of developing policies for classroom and playground use for mobile devices or the library programs that help students develop positive digital behaviours and awareness of their digital footprint.
So what killer statistics have you been able to unearth? I would really love to hear about your examples and how you have used these to advocate for your school library.
Advocacy – Identify a memorable message
In recent days a number of reports have been released and national decisions made about learning and curriculum in Australia.
For example, PISA 2009 research results were published on 7 December, so it is important to take a look at the implications for Australian education. Then, on 8 December the education Ministers endorsed the Australian Curriculum and the joint transcript provides some interesting perspectives from each of the members of the Ministerial Council.
So, for me it is time to revisit what advocacy really means as I believe an advocate’s approach will be crucial over the next couple of years, particularly, as the Australian national curriculum is implemented across the country.
One point I wish to make is, there is a difference between advocacy and lobbying. Advocacy is about working on activities that will influence policy whereas lobbying is about asking the policymakers to take a specific position on a specific piece of legislation. Subtle, but essential to define. Wikipedia provides a good definition to consider.
So that individuals can feel comfortable with and a part of any advocacy activities I’m going to spend the next few weeks covering seven crucial strategies and also hope to get you involved in providing more commentary on each topic.
Strategy 1: Identify a memorable message
It is important that you decide what your message is going to be. As an advocate you will need to repeat it many times in different ways to get it to stick.
Here are some examples:
Our school library provides a vital service.
I make a difference to student learning.
Our school library evolves to meet the students’ needs.
Our school library is a solution to …..
What is the memorable message that you continue to address on a regular basis so that your school community gets a clear idea of what you are doing for them and the school? What is it that you want to keep in front of everyone’s minds? What relevant and up-to-date impression do you want teachers and students to experience? What perception do you want them to have?
School Library Advocacy
As of Monday this week the House Standing Committee on Education and Training was disbanded. Subsequently, the Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in Australian Schools is in “limbo.” The last public hearing was in Perth (13 July) and all transcripts are available at http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/edt/schoollibraries/hearings.htm But, the final report is now “on hold” until after the election.
So, what is likely to happen? After the outcome of the election -
- option 1: the Inquiry will be re-instated;
- option 2: the Inquiry will be re-instated, but with different terms of reference;
- option 3 – the Inquiry will not continue.
All options are dependent on the political party elected to govern and the Minister of Education of the governing party.
Where to from here? Effectively, we have between now and 21 August to keep the “spirit of the Inquiry” alive in the minds of MPs so option 1 can be a reality.
I’ve posted some suggestions at ASLA Online so everyone can be an advocate for school libraries, especially for the next 5 weeks. Check out my post – Federal Election 2010 School Library Advocacy.
School Library Inquiry involvement
My apologies for not communicating for awhile, but I’ve been extremely busy working with the Australian School Library Association (ASLA) for the House of Representatives Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in Australian Schools.
Since my last post I worked with one of the ASLA Executive to prepare the submission for the Inquiry. On 28 April, June Wall and I appeared as witnesses for ASLA at the first public hearing in Sydney. You can capture the transcript of that hearing from the House Standing Committee on Education and Training web site.
I’ve also been involved in a number of interviews in my role as the Executive Officer of ASLA. Here are some you can see and hear….
Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives 2010, ‘How important are school librarians’, About the House, 17 May 2010. (Check out the video clip section on the web site.)
Godfrey, P 2010, ‘What is the role of the librarian in the Internet world?‘ Adelaide Radio 101.5 FM, 12 April 2010.
More information is available on the ASLA web site.
There are several more public hearings to be held during June and July so I will try and keep you informed.
In a speech in Cape Town, South Africa, on 7 June, 1966, Robert F Kennedy said: “There is a Chinese curse which says, ‘May he live in interesting times’. Like it or not, we live in interesting times…” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A807374)
Bit spooky about the Chinese curse, but I have to agree…like it or not, we live in interesting times.
ATTENTION teacher librarians
and
school librarians
receive your FREE report on
"How To Have A Successful School Library Blog"
Enter your details now.
