Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Turning the Page - Gates Advocacy Conference

Recently I was fortunate to attend the Turning the Page Conference sponsored by the Gates Foundation and PLA. The conference provided training, information, and tools to help build participant's skills and confidence in advocating for their libraries. You can find more details at www.SustainingLibraries.org. There were many great ideas shared, but one I thought might be useful was what I call the "postcard idea." Libraries talked about how after a library program they handed to participants a postcard, with the phrase, "what I learned at my library today" , these were collected and used to promote other programs. What a wonderful simple tool, but one I could see you might use in various ways. (in your newsletters, on your web, etc.)