Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting publishedI'm a huge advocate of Library Services, if only to my friends and family, and workmates. I've even somehow inspired one of my cousins to want to be a librarian (ok, she is only 12, but I was about her age when I decided to be a librarian! She'll learn about the evils of classification at a later date...)
If you've been reading my blog, you'll have seen a post I made a while back about how I feel libraries are perceived: http://informationassistantatwork.blogspot.com/2011/06/times-they-are-changin.html
I'm strongly of the opinion that many people just do not see the need for professional library services, and politicians are devaluing the service as a whole. I think people need to be more aware of the skills that we hold, and the enrichment that we can bring to society: in schools and academic libraries, by providing a top-class environment for student support and to enable them to gain the best qualifications that they can; and in public libraries, who have an even greater social remit now than they ever have before - not only in promoting reading (which will always be our main goal), but through providing classes on various topics to the public, providing computing access and help to those who need it, running pre-school story times to encourage children to read (and to encourage their parents to read to them: a huge help in developmental milestones for children), and to provide a social space where people just like to be!
I'm strongly of the opinion that many people just do not see the need for professional library services, and politicians are devaluing the service as a whole. I think people need to be more aware of the skills that we hold, and the enrichment that we can bring to society: in schools and academic libraries, by providing a top-class environment for student support and to enable them to gain the best qualifications that they can; and in public libraries, who have an even greater social remit now than they ever have before - not only in promoting reading (which will always be our main goal), but through providing classes on various topics to the public, providing computing access and help to those who need it, running pre-school story times to encourage children to read (and to encourage their parents to read to them: a huge help in developmental milestones for children), and to provide a social space where people just like to be!
I think that I would like to get involved in advocacy on a wider scale - I've just never really known where to start. However, thanks to cpd23, I've now got some places to look at: I'm very interested in Voices for the Library, and will definitely be looking further into this. Maybe it's time to make my voice heard: small though it may be, when it joins so many others, others will have to take note! Long live the LIBRARY!
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