Leadership and Advocacy
Leadership and Advocacy
Related Objective
· Learn about advocacy and leadership strategies to improve the availability and access to library services for all students
Leadership
Now that you've learned about how to make your library more accessible and broaden the scope of your library collection, it's your turn to apply your action plan to advocate for your library!
Watch this video (4 min) with a branch of Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library discussing how they helped advocate for the needs of patrons with disabilities while designing their new facility.
It is essential for academic librarians to be campus leaders to promote the causes they believe in, which includes supporting their students with disabilities. In the Library Journal article "Academic Librarians are Grassroots Leaders, Too," Steven Bell outlines how academic librarians must take advantage of opportunities to create change in their institutions, and encourages librarians to take advantage of on-campus leadership programs. Librarians can be leaders and encourage their institutions to better serve students with disabilities by becoming known advocates of equitable access for all students.
One way to display leadership in this area more broadly is through writing and publishing articles in professional journals about the role of the academic librarian in serving this population. Another way of demonstrating leadership is to collect evidence of best practices from your work with students with disabilities and share them at professional conferences.
Advocacy
You can be an advocate for students with disabilities. If you feel that you cannot alter policies set at a higher level, consider starting small by educating people around you and altering procedures in the library to reflect the needs of students with disabilities.
Think about some of the actions you can take to advocate for your accessible library program. To see a few examples take a look at this document.
References
American Library Association. (2012). 3.3a Ten action steps for frontline school advocacy. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/advocacyuniversity/frontline_advocacy/frontline_school/ten
American Library Association (n.d.). Frontline advocacy for academic libraries. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/advocacyuniversity/frontline_advocacy/frontline_academic
Bell, S. (2011, September 19). Academic librarians are grassroots campus leaders, too. Library Journal. Retrieved from http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2011/09/opinion/academic-librarians-are-grassroots-campus-leaders-too-from-the-bell-tower/
I Love Libraries. (n.d.) Ways to advocate as a library advocate. Retrieved from http://www.ilovelibraries.org/ways-advocate-library-advocate
Everhart , N., Mardis, M. A., & Johnston, M. (2011). National board certified school librarians' leadership in technology integration: Results of a national survey. School Library Media Research, 14, 1-18.
Everhart, N. (2007). LEADERSHIP: School library media specialists as effective school leaders. Knowledge Quest, 35(4), 54-57.
Poole, E. (2012, October 25). Leadership skills more crucial than ever. Public Libraries Online. Retrieved from http://publiclibrariesonline.org/2012/10/leadership-skills-more-crucial-than-ever/