Competency D: Apply the fundamental principles of planning, management, marketing, and
advocacy.
Introduction
In order to have adequate books and media materials and patron participation, the library must have a librarian that is good at planning and management as well as marketing and advocacy skills. Without effective management, planning, marketing and advocacy would not get done.
Planning and Management
There is a great necessity for planning and management skills in being a librarian overall. Management, according to Crystal Megaridis, means that “Special librarians [are] responsible for keeping the library open” (Megaridis, 2024). They also manage what the staff is to do in the long and short term. Basically, they are the spine that keeps the library running smoothly. They are also responsible for planning and “Coming up with the mission and vision of the organization” (Megaridis, 2024). They are also responsible for managing and planning what kind of materials will be shelved and shown around the library. For example, they will put up materials for Banned Book Week. Library managers are also responsible for planning and managing the library’s budget.
Marketing
It is in my experience that marketing is a critical part of getting patrons attracted like a magnet to the library. There are digital newsletters, signage throughout the library, and marketing materials pinned up through the community. According to Megaridis in 2024, successful marketing needs all members of the library team on board, that there is a consistent text style and editing, creativity, new ideas, web design abilities, organizational skills, boldness to try new things and there is an understanding that it’s okay to fail. I found that LA County Library’s newsletter is highly successful in that they market their Upcoming Live Virtual Events, they showcase new books they’ve onboarded, they promote Author Talks and add registration links to these activities to get a headcount. They even promote art classes and activities that are in Spanish only as well as a button that brings digital patrons to their YouTube page. Digital marketing books, classes and showcases on the digital newsletter makes attendance to the activities highly successful.
Advocacy
In the Intellectual Freedom Seminar for INFO 234, my assignment focused on economic barriers to information. Professor Carrie Gardner focused on the Library Bill of Rights to discuss how ““Economic barriers are not limited solely to financial constraints and a user’s ability to pay fines or fees. Many policies and procedures may disproportionately harm those having financial difficulties, experiencing homelessness, or those from marginalized communities. These policies may include those related to personal belongings, hygiene requirements, verification of a permanent address, access to an email account or computer. Such policies and procedures effectively abridge or deny access for some members of the community because they reinforce distinctions among users.” As you can see there are barriers that are related to finances, but also to homelessness or the access to a computer. If all of the above are an issue to get a library card and use computers patrons could be shut out of the library system. This is why we must advocate for our patrons for less roadblocks like hygiene being a reason why a patron may not own a library card. LA County Library, for instance, has completely removed fines and fees for late turn-ins, helping to advocate financially for their patrons.
Evidence
1 – INFO 204: Information Professions: Programming Slides
For my first piece of evidence for Competency D I will be discussing a project where I was to plan and manage a library when given a limitless amount of funding. Although a bit unrealistic with the limitless funding, my part of the “Megabucks Report” was to plan and manage programming, which to me is a huge chunk of the library’s purpose as a whole. In this report I made slides that represented the areas that I thought were the most important. The most important came first – books! We then asked for tutors for all ages and even some multilingual ones. We made a Teen Advisory Board for teens to volunteer and get credit as an elective. We then asked for STEM funding and that came along with books, e-books, Legos, and tablets as well. We came up with a Summer Reading Program including adding in the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program. We got three volunteers to help teach ESL to students after school and on weekends. The library even onboarded an afterschool and weekend tutoring program. We decided to have an all age event showcase where live music, poetry nights, and arts and crafting happened. We created a budget for the arts including microphones and amplifiers. Planning and managing was not an easy task. Asking for money for a budget was also not easy. But it did provide me with some insight into what goes into running a library.
2 – INFO 231: Issues in Special Libraries and Information Centers: INFO 231: Unit 3: Marketing and Measurement-Discussion-Camfield Leatham J
For my second piece of evidence for Competency D I will take information from INFO 231: Issues in Special Libraries and Information Centers and I will go over the Marketing portion. “[…] having a monthly newsletter is a good way to market self-serve databases. The newsletter can highlight the researching methods that are easiest, which is through the self-serve databases. Even though the databases aren’t new, they can be talked about as if they are. Not only can there be writing pointing to blog posts, there can also be logos that represent the type of self-serve databases. For example, connecting and linking the social work archival system with the blog post, plus logos of individual databases that builds brand recognition” (Leatham, 2024). LA County Library has a successful online newsletter, which is what I was using as an example here. In order to market or shine a strong light onto the social work archival system as an example here it would be necessary to use consistent fonts and logos. The searchable and self-servable databases would need to be talked about in blog posts so online library visitors would know it even exists.
3 – INFO 234: Intellectual Freedom Seminar: INFO 234: November 17 to November 24, 2024 Privacy and Confidentiality
For my third piece of evidence for Competency D I will discuss a different kind of Advocacy with information coming from INFO 234: Intellectual Freedom Seminar. Previously I discussed financial advocacy and now I will discuss advocacy for privacy and confidentiality at the library. This paper assignment talked about our opinions about whether or not I believe that the information a patron accesses online at the library should be admissible in court. I said “I do believe that the information one accesses should be admissible in court with a subpoena”, citing the Christchurch mosque shooting (Leatham, 2024). I also referenced that Facebook holds videos of shootings and they go viral in minutes and are available online for hours surpassing a subpoena. “These postings or live streams would provide evidence that would point directly to the shooter and would give proof and identity of the shooter” (Leatham, 2024). This is all without a subpoena as it is posted without privacy and confidentiality. So, I do advocate for privacy and confidentiality at the library in any searches. But, if there is a crime being committed live online there should not be a subpoena. However, for further evidence, I believe that there should be a subpoena to access private records. However, there is the case where crimes are posted online in real time that surpass needing a subpoena. Everything is right out in the open.
Conclusion
I believe that having the fundamental principles of planning, management, marketing, and
advocacy makes libraries a tight running ship. Planning and management make the cogs of the library machine plan its mission and execute its vision. While marketing helps to promote the planning of activities inside the library and is managed by the library itself. And advocacy is there for the protection of patron’s rights to free information. Advocacy is also put into place to protect private information unless a subpoena is needed.
References
Leatham, J.(2024). INFO 234: November 17 to November 24, 2024 privacy and confidentiality. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iR4GqFVozKb3BJeWPu2gGoQB4tauzJ40y2P_0bAOINc/edit?usp=sharing.
Leatham, J. (2024). INFO 204: Information Professions: Programming Slides. [Canva Slide] https://www.canva.com/design/DAF-NlxU2Ig/kMacKVIk3pR3m6O9QF-QBQ/edit?utm_content=DAF-NlxU2Ig&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton.
Leatham, J. (2024). INFO 231: Unit 3: Marketing and measurement-discussion-Camfield Leatham J. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zEd_NPWhqcM53Nmeqw4CjP4j-uSN1PKJf11HBbcXgPc/edit?usp=sharing.
Leatham, J. (2024). INFO 234 – Economic barriers to information access: An interpretation of the library bill of rights. [Google Doc]. American Library Association. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cn7N3g8OIbTrQox_j0Hfc2x5Et5D1RY2Sw5YSrYYtyc/edit?usp=sharing.
Megaridis, C. (2024). Unit 2: Management lecture notes. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/154xg5tBO0sWQ7-enWZHJqnTe_qhWkI86FNoWdVzfjt4/edit?usp=sharing.
Megaridis, C. (2024). Unit 3: Lecture A – Issues in special libraries: Marketing. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b-W7kj8GC_KS8QMSU5X1D2Fl6ov0-HwCIyjgJDr0GDo/edit?usp=sharing.
Juanita Leatham e-portfolio 