Learning Library Advocacy by Doing: LIS Graduate Student Advocacy Internships

This program proposal is submitted by the University of North Carolina Greensboro in partnership with ALA’s Committee on Library Advocacy (COLA). COLA Chair Justin de la Cruz has identified the growth of advocacy internships in other LIS programs as a high priority for COLA and a way to empower advocacy efforts across the country while providing future librarians with this essential skill. Students enrolled in UNCG’s advocacy internships learn to be advocates and advance legislation while providing critical logistical support to increase advocacy for libraries. This arrangement represents a win-win for students, for LIS programs and for libraries in general. Overseen, by Dr. Anthony Chow, a COLA member and longtime co-chair of advocacy for the North Carolina Library Association (NCLA), these internships reflect an essential logistical “support and operational layer” typically provided by interns in any field. This means weekly strategy meetings and then lots of activity focused on ensuring NCLA’s advocacy efforts are strategic, operational, and are moving. This includes putting together accurate lists of legislators at the state and national level, identifying the most strategically important members to advocate to, the documentation, helping with the logistics of state and national legislative days, and overseeing NCLA’s advocacy website (https://nclibraryadvocacy.org/) and social media channels. As Dr. Chow notes, “One of the significant problems with library advocacy is that our leaders are in high demand and typically in other leadership roles as well (Dr. Chow is Chair of UNCG’s General Faculty and Faculty Senate and his co-chair LaJuan Pringle manages a library branch in the North Carolina’s library system, Charlotte-Mecklenburg), which means we often do not have the time to focus too much on the day-to-day logistical activities required of effective advocacy efforts. Advocacy interns provide invaluable support and help turn into action many of the ideas and strategies we want to implement. As a faculty member, hands-on experiential learning is always highly coveted because it represents “real world” application and a truly uncontrolled learning environment. It gives me tremendous pride and joy to see our students learn the ins and outs of advocacy by actually doing it under our supervision. This also includes once in a life-time experiences like advocating for libraries on Capitol Hill.”

Dr. Chow’s current and former advocacy interns agree. Former Intern Morgan Pruitt who just earned her MLIS reflected, “I learned more about how public libraries are funded and how citizens can participate more in local and state politics. I also learned how to advocate for libraries through social media and through dialogue with the representatives’ offices, including inviting representatives to libraries, contacting their offices, and presenting my talking points to them. Prior to my internship, I was uninformed about how to make my voice heard about issues that I care about. As much as I learned about my responsibility to be an engaged citizen, I learned even more about my rights as a citizen to bring my talking points to my representative.” Current intern Martha McGehee feels that learning to be an advocate is useful for any career: “I feel that learning how to be an advocate for libraries first hand has contributed immeasurably to my development as a future professional in the field. I witnessed the benefits that can be achieved for libraries when enthusiastic LIS students have an opportunity to put the passion that lead them to Library School into action.” Current intern Alexandra Voorhees is in charge of NCLA’s advocacy website and social media and emphasizes the importance of sharing the library message: “If we want libraries to exist and continue to prosper in American society, we need to be able to effectively communicate their value and importance to stakeholders. So many individuals and groups just don't know what libraries can do for them and building that awareness is critical.” Voorhees feels that the internship gave her many opportunities, “It teaches us critical communication, data reporting, storytelling, and advocacy skills. It builds our network and interpersonal relationships and it emphasizes the collaborative nature and process of advocacy which I think will be very useful in a professional environment later on.”
Pruitt a shared memory of her time as an intern when she started the hashtag #NC__LibraryStory: “ I found and shared library stories from numerous NC districts and tagged the appropriate representative online. I remember highlighting Farmville Public Library a few times as well as Wayne County Public Library and a few smaller/rural libraries. I wanted to show how critical these small libraries are to their communities. Being able to share stories from small libraries meant being able to share how beautiful and vital small communities and their libraries are.”
Voorhees feels that her work as an intern has benefited libraries, “Being a voice for libraries and librarians to further their priorities, needs, agenda, etc and advocate on their behalf if they don't know how to. Bring awareness to the great programs, services they provide as well as ways to support them and get community members involved.”

Is this something that can be scaled to other LIS departments across the country? Is this something that would be valuable to future librarians earning their MLIS? We believe it is and our presentation will begin this important discussion on how to form internship opportunities with local LIS programs and libraries in support of advocacy for all types of libraries.