Description: 

Pandemic-era conditions have forced a rapid, potentially long-lasting change from a focus on onsite face-to-face to online and hybrid (combined onsite/online) interactions among advocates for libraries and the communities they serve; this shift includes rapid adoption of social media tools ranging from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to Zoom and other online-conferencing tools. This highly-interactive, discussion-focused session will explore the ups and downs of what we are experiencing, how it is changing the way we engage in conversations centered on advocacy, and take a look forward to see what sort of “new and better normal” we can create to more effectively incorporate social media platforms into our advocacy toolkits.

Goals:

By participating in this session, you will explore ways to incorporate social media tools (including videoconferencing) into your work as a library advocate; see how advocates within libraries and other organizations are turning the challenges of pandemic-era advocacy into approaches that may benefit libraries and the communities they serve; and identify ways you can more effectively and comfortably serve as an advocate in an onsite-online world.

During the session, you will identify:

At least three social-media platforms you can use to support your advocacy efforts on behalf of your library and the communities you serve

Three examples of what advocates within libraries and other organizations are doing to effectively incorporate social media into their advocacy efforts

A series of (at least) three steps you will take to immediately begin using a social media platform to support your advocacy efforts on behalf of libraries and the communities they serve

Session Facilitators

Essraa Nawar, Development Librarian, DEI Program Coordinator, and Chair of the Arts, Exhibits, and Events Committee at Chapman University; has also been a TDx speaker and co-authored the paper “Leatherby Libraries from Home: Online “and Social Media Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic”

Paul Signorelli, a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant serving as Library Advocacy Training Project Manager for CLA; author, Change the World Using Social Media; Storyteller in Residence for the Arizona State University ShapingEDU community; and a board member for the UCLA Daily Bruin Alumni Network 

About the Ursula Meyer Advocacy Fund Training Series

This program is part of an ongoing series of monthly online sessions offered through the Ursula Meyer Advocacy Fund Training Series; sessions are generally held online on the second Wednesday of each month, beginning at 10 am PT. The series honors the memory of Ursula Meyer, 1977-78 CLA President, California Library Hall of Fame inductee, longtime director of the Stockton-San Joaquin Public Library, and fierce advocate for library services and intellectual freedom. The Ursula Meyer Fund was established to provide for the training of librarians in all stages of their careers, and library supporters, in political advocacy and political action, in honor of Ursula’s belief that librarians need effective political skills to advocate for library support at all levels of government.