141 - Advocacy in the Time of COVID: Promoting Impact of Advocacy Efforts in Health Science Libraries

Background: This poster examines the advocacy initiatives completed by the Midcontinental Chapter of the Medical Library Association’s Advocacy Committee during 2020-2021. The Advocacy Committee was established to engage health science librarians and their institutions with advocacy efforts they could implement and share within the Midcontinental region.

Description: 2020-2021 was a challenging year for many, including library staff and the institutions they serve. The role of the library became more important as services were modified to adapt to the pandemic. The Advocacy Committee for the Midcontinental Region undertook initiatives to promote the importance of health sciences libraries/institutions and the role they play, especially in the difficult year of the pandemic. To engage with membership and promote health librarians and their institutions’ role in advocacy the following projects were undertaken. These projects included renovating MCMLA’s advocacy resources page, creating a populatable library value infographic, quarterly advocacy challenges, podcasts interviewing library advocates, and partnering with MCMLA’s Education Committee, to create a journal club. This poster highlights the Advocacy Committee’s initiatives to connect membership to resources and ideas that they can utilize to promote their institutions and services.

Conclusion: Efforts to increase advocacy have anecdotally enhanced member engagement, a sense of community, provided members with avenues to promote advocacy at their institutions, and rewarded individual members for the valuable advocacy efforts. The region’s advocacy initiatives could be easily reproducible for other regions wanting to undertake their own advocacy initiatives. Advocacy efforts at both the individual and chapter level are essential elements in ensuring agency in the success of an organization. Several means of engaging in advocacy are suggested to improve collaboration within regional MLA chapters and to encourage similar engagement to promote health science's libraries within individual institutions.