Winter 2015 TLJ

Editorial
A
very true and common scenario:
Librarian: We’ve been conducting a
program over the last year that brings in
caregivers and students to read together
[insert any great program of choice
here – faculty research support services,
workforce partnerships, etc.]. We are
getting such great feedback, and the
program is really working!
Me: Terrific!! Do you have photos, a
write-up, care to write an article for the
TLJ [I am in constant search of great
content.]
Librarian: We’d love to write up
something about the program and its
success.
Me: Super. Feel free to send anything
you’ve already sent out to administrators,
the media, or legislators.
Librarian: We haven’t sent out anything.
Me: You need to tell your story and all the
great work you are doing!
Librarian: We’re telling you.
You get the gist. Librarians are incredibly
good at telling EACH OTHER of their
successes. Telling administrators, parent
groups, faculty, deans, and elected officials
– not so much. This systemic and
somewhat unproductive modesty must go.
I think it is wonderful that we operate in a
profession that takes such self-fulfillment
in a job well done, but we must also join
the ranks of the business community that
send out press releases both when a new
program/ product is launched and when
good outcomes are achieved.
Interestingly, I receive many press releases
announcing new library initiatives. I
rarely receive any announcing program
successes. “Community Public Library
helps 30 people find jobs this quarter!”
“Local Elementary School hosted family
literacy night and had parents committing
to read 10 books each month with kids!”
“City University Library supported faculty
who received grant and found the cure for
sneezing.” Again, you get the gist.
4 Texas Library Journal • Winter 2014
by Gloria Meraz
Telling Our Story: A Tale of Who – And Not What – We Tell
I profoundly appreciate that so many of
you share your good work with me. In
fact, I couldn’t do my job without you
– and that’s true on many, many levels.
However, for some, colleagues (including
TLA and State Library) are seen as
authorities and sometimes surrogates for
certain action.
Let me be clear: there should be no
intermediary between your message of
success and the stakeholders you need
to support you. Those groups include
constituent groups, administrators,
decision-makers, and yes, elected officials.
Your first priority is to get your message
to these groups directly. By all means,
copy TLA, the State Library, and your
in-house stakeholders but deliver your
message directly to the people you need to
impress. I’ve so often received incredible
letters of support for library programs
at the TLA office, including wonderful
handwritten letters from children. I copy
and deliver them to legislative offices as
appropriate, but that effort does lose a
sense of immediacy, objective local need,
and appeal in the process.
Your administrators and legislators
want to hear from you! Offices will take
information from Austin groups, but that
communication is certainly secondary to
direct constituent communication.
For anyone concerned about what can
and cannot be done within existing
institutional procedures, I offer the
following guidelines:
1) Any person in this country is free to
express his or her own personal opinions.
2) Find out if your workplace (school
district, city, or university) maintains
guidelines for communicating with state
or local officials (i.e., lobbying activities).
If it does, follow them! No one wants you
to operate contrary to your workplace rules.
3) That being said, you have many options
on how to communicate your needs and
successes.
4) If there is a process in place to get
permission to do certain things, find out
what it is and follow it. Often, your parent
institution will want you to send out press
releases of success, letters to stakeholders,
etc. Don’t assume that what you want to
do will be met with resistance.
5) If for whatever reason your institution
cannot allow employees to take an official
position on an issue (a very common
situation for state workers), then accept
that premise and work to get your message
out on your own. To do this:
• Speak for yourself. Never represent
that you are conveying the position
of your institution. For example, to
advocate for an increase in funds for
library programs, you can send a letter,
make visits to legislators, make phone
calls, and even write letters to the editor
about programs.
• Identify yourself by name and say you
are a librarian who works at a local
institution. Be sure to specify that you
are speaking as an individual.
• Conduct these advocacy activities on
your own time, your personal email,
home address.
• As a matter of simple good sense,
avoid talking about employers in any
negative sense. Positive framing in
our communications in most cases is
helpful. Even though you are entitled
to express your own thoughts, I urge
you to be mindful that you do not
want anything in the public view that
will cast you or your institution in
a bad light (unless that is what you
intend – and then, you are in whole
new territory, which is not the purpose
of my message). You want whatever
activities you conduct to be viewed as
professional, and you want to stand
proudly behind what you send out
or say.
The take away here is that we all need to
be proactive in delivering our message to
the people who can make a difference.
Telling each that we are doing great work
is only the first step. We must tell others
outside of the library industry of the
good we are doing. Outcomes must be
shared with decision-makers, and it is an
embedded and essential component of our
work to insure that messaging occurs. J