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Campaigning Wiki

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The Frontline Advocacy Toolkit is designed to help library staff recognize their role as advocates for their libraries on a daily basis. [source: ala-frontline] The term “frontline” describes individuals who interact in the visible forefront of any situation, and library staff are frontline people. [source: ala-frontline] This includes not only librarians and administrators, but also clerks, circulation desk personnel, shelvers, and reference assistants. [source: ala-frontline] However, the toolkit emphasizes that everyone on a library’s staff is on the front line, regardless of whether their job places them in direct contact with customers. [source: ala-frontline]

Every library and the community or organization it serves live together in a mutually beneficial relationship. [source: ala-frontline] The library provides important resources and services, and in return, the community or organization dedicates a portion of its resources to supporting the library’s offerings. [source: ala-frontline] While public officials, educational administrators, and organizational managers ultimately make choices that affect the library’s ability to operate effectively, a great deal of opinion is formed at a grassroots or frontline level. [source: ala-frontline] This opinion is the result of many simple, routine interactions that happen every day between library personnel and members of their community or organization. [source: ala-frontline]

Library staff live and move within a community, organization, or environment that consists of their friends, coworkers, relatives, and neighbors. [source: ala-frontline] Each of these individuals is a potential supporter of the library, and staff members are the face and voice of the library to these people. [source: ala-frontline] The process of supporting a cause or course of action is called “advocacy,” and as a staff member, you are in a perfect position to tell your library’s story and become an effective frontline advocate. [source: ala-frontline] Public opinion polls tell us that people love their libraries, but in a day of competing messages, library staff cannot continue to rely on people’s established opinions and must be proactive. [source: ala-frontline]

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Campaigners can use this toolkit to train library staff at all levels to identify everyday opportunities for advocacy. [source: ala-frontline] The toolkit provides practical tools to help frontline library staff identify opportunities to advocate for the value of libraries and their own value on a daily basis. [source: ala-frontline] It includes specific tips for public libraries, school libraries, college and university libraries, and corporate, government, and other libraries. [source: ala-frontline]

A campaigner uses this resource to empower every staff member to become an advocate by recognizing that their routine interactions with friends, coworkers, relatives, and neighbors shape perceptions of the library. [source: ala-frontline] The toolkit helps staff understand that they can deliver the library’s message and tell its story, making them effective frontline advocates who influence grassroots opinion and support for the library. [source: ala-frontline]

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