Why Advocate?

All types of people—library users and also those who may not use but deeply believe in libraries— are needed for effective advocacy.

The core meaning of advocacy is “to plead the cause of another.” Today the word has taken on the additional meaning of “pleading for something you care about.”

Advocating for libraries means speaking and doing whatever you can to provide free access to the riches of the information age. It also means protecting one of the few meeting grounds at the center of our communities. Advocacy can take the form of individual or collective action. It can be short-term, to address an immediate problem like a budget cut, or long-term, to build public awareness about the importance of the library to the local business community.

Anyone can be a library advocate. Advocates come from all walks of life, all backgrounds, and with varying experiences. Some are concerned residents who have no formal ties to the library, while others may be members of the Friends group or sit on the library’s Board of Trustees. Keep in mind that advocacy works best when individual action supports the institutional strategy of your local library. It’s always a good idea to work with them.

However small or large your action for libraries, you can make a difference in your community. Think of it as democracy in action.

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A More Complex Environment

Advocacy must be sustained throughout the year, not only brought into play for budget hearings or crises.

For many decades of the 20th century, library advocacy was not very visible or even urgently necessary. Funding for libraries was generally accepted as a public good, services and programs were relatively stable and did not involve major new investments, and public institutions were not expected to be “accountable” in a business sense. Today, however, operating and advocating for a public library has become more demanding and more complex, owing not only to the rapidly changing requirements of modern information technology, more diverse populations and rapidly changing economic environments, but also to efforts to slim down government. The growing demands of the public for services and the growing demands on advocates to make their case in new ways have challenged advocates to develop new thinking, new visibility, new evidence and new forms of action.

In this changing environment, many library supporters have come to understand that advocacy involves a series of strategies for making that case for the library as an important public and private investment. It is much more than raising small amounts of dollars annually to supplement the library’s municipal budget, and much more than lobbying to maintain budgets at prior levels—it involves strategic communications, outreach to stakeholders, partnerships with institutional allies and mobilization of users of all ages and types. It also involves engaging residents in a common vision for the future library, a library with growing resources that can position it to respond to new community needs in a dynamic information and communications environment.

A More Sustained Effort

Those who care about the library’s economic health and capacity to grow recognize that advocacy must be sustained throughout the year, not only brought into play for budget hearings or funding crises. They know also that advocates themselves must change and diversify to reflect the multiplicity of languages and backgrounds of library users. And most library supporters recognize the importance of library campaigns that go beyond drives for prestigious central buildings to include new technology, new programming, branch outlets, and even endowments that can ensure ongoing renewal of services to respond to community learning needs of the 21st century.

Other aspects of advocacy are changing as well. No longer confined to one library or one community, more and more advocacy or communications initiatives are being conducted at the system, county or state levels. Other kinds of supporters, beyond library Friends and staff, are becoming more involved in advocacy, including trustees, members of library foundations, and leaders of key constituencies and allied community organizations.

As advocacy is evolving, even its language is changing. Legislators and government officials today expect to discuss funding issues using the language they are most used to—the language of business. New public library valuation studies are beginning to provide the statistical evidence and quantification of impact information that seems to be needed in the political arena. While the field of library valuation is still in its infancy, it is catching on as a new resource for library advocates who need to be as familiar with data as with anecdotes to make the case for libraries.

New Voices Needed

Whatever the approach, library advocacy first and foremost addresses the fundamental issue of public support.

To meet the challenges of this more demanding environment, all types of people—library users and also those who may not use but deeply believe in libraries—are needed for effective advocacy. Experience shows that their efforts work best when practiced as an ongoing activity rather than as the momentary response to a crisis. It is better to anticipate the crisis than to respond to it, and it is best of all to avoid the crisis entirely by having a well-run, active library that has broad and deep public and private support.

Whatever the approach, library advocacy first and foremost addresses the fundamental issue of public support. Local library revenues derive primarily from the public sector—approximately 82% of library revenues are in the form of tax revenues—which makes advocacy to sustain and grow public investment crucial for the future of libraries. At the same time, private investment is a critical ingredient for keeping public libraries dynamic and responsive to changing communities. In this time of rapidly accelerating demographic, economic and technological change, private-sector support for service enhancements, capital improvements, and experimental or new programming can make the difference between a library that is or is not able to keep pace with its community’s information and learning needs.

Library advocacy is both a very practical thing that brings results when properly done and a means by which residents can express civic participation and make a commitment to something they believe in as a private and a public good. However it is manifested, advocacy for public libraries promotes values that are communal rather than private, general rather than individual and lasting rather than transitory.

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