Thing 15: Advocacy

Looking at the many advocacy campaigns that exist in the UK and Ireland today for libraries I'd say that as a profession we're getting very good at it- but then looking back over the last five or so years I guess we've had to be. For the vast majority of that time I've been working in public libraries and obviously its been during an extremely turbulent period for public services and libraries as regards funding cuts.

As someone who is relatively new to libraries, my impression was that public libraries (in Wales anyway!) had initially been caught off guard at suddenly being asked to justify our very existence. I remember a colleague once saying to me that we're not like a business we can't justify our 'usefulness' in terms of our profit margins! For example, how can you measure the impact a library has on the life of an elderly lady who lives alone and her only human interaction during the day comes from a library assistant when she visits her local library? That's why advocacy campaigns like Speak Up for Libraries are so important because they encourage regular library users to be vocal in expressing their support for libraries. Its very demoralising to read about various library around the country but there have been success stories too. The recent 'sit in' for Cardiff Libraries was successful in that it granted several community libraries a reprieve. We have to focus on these successes and continue to promote advocacy to fight for libraries.