Oh. My. Stars.
I am unbelievably honored and thrilled to have been able to host tonight's session on Rock Star Advocacy in TL Virtual Cafe. It was, simply put, a joy to be able to share and learn from a group of so many amazing folks - many of whom I admire greatly. Yet another item checked off the professional bucket list!
As promised, here are my slides from the presentation:
In addition to the "tips" I mentioned, there were a number of GREAT suggestions posted in the chat. Even though I promised I'd post them, there turned out to be just too many to mention here, (this is a good problem to have!) but a few that stood out were:
Have a social media night to both education parents and help ease their concerns. "My daughter is tweeting, should I be worried?" Great idea!
Volunteer to help your principal with building level staff development.
Volunteer at local events like "early voting" or "clean sweeps" - great way to take the message of library to the people.
Hold Tech Tuesdays or Tech Petting Zoo events to become a resource for teachers.
Hold a new teacher breakfast at the beginning of the year to let new faculty know what you can do for them.
Again, so many excellent ideas were shared. For those who missed the session, be sure to check out both the audio and the chat archives. Lots of nuggets of goodness in there.
Also, there were some requests in the chat for links to various things. So here they are:
My data wall. (I'll be posting more pictures of this soon).
And, of course, I would be completely remiss if I did slap a big, juicy, virtual kiss on both Gwyneth Jones and Tiffany Whitehead as thanks for their help this evening. I would call them the wind beneath my wings, but they are soaring right there next to me. Thanks, girls!
Finally, if there's one message I hope the people attending tonight got from the session, it's that advocacy isn't about libraries or librarians. It's about kids. When we spread the gospel of library, it has to be about student learning and the impact we have on kids. Otherwise, we're little more than the proverbial snake oil salesmen - schlepping a product that might look good or sound good, but when push comes to shove, is essentially worthless. So, get out there and spread the good word, folks. Your kids are worth DESERVE it.
