Thing 16: Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published

Advocacy is something I had never really considered before I did two very important things; firstly, writing my Masters thesis [on how we manage one of our own special collections] and secondly, starting the CPD 23 Things course.

Writing my thesis was the first time I began to consider that we [the library] might be just a tad under valued within our own organisation; and taking into consideration the amount we do and the amazing collections we hold, this was not a comfortable realisation. If that can be taken as a negative, then starting the CPD 23 Things course was most definitely a positive. It opened my eyes to an active and vibrant community of information professionals who not only care deeply about their profession but are not adverse to a good old rant when they feel the need.

My library, just like all the others, needs shouting about – these days it’s not enough that we have been doing sterling work for years; we are now required to prove our relevance time and time again. This post comes at an opportune time as we have begun to discuss how we can we promote ourselves both within and without our own organization. We are going to look at outreach and marketing and improving our online persona and this just the beginning – we have come up with lots of good ideas!

On a practical level I am starting small J I make sure that my blog contains continuous references to my own library and have started Tweeting about both my own and other local libraries’ events whenever I can [last week I re-tweeted events for CLIC and Glamorgan Archives].

As for getting published, this does not currently apply to me. I am a long way from even considering it but [and I know I say this all the time] I’d like to think that in the future I might create something that would be worth publishing.

Ps. Just in case anyone was wondering... I'm the white kitten.