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Volume 28, Number 5, June 2001

Marketing Reflections: Advocacy in Action

Gail Bush and Merrilee Andersen Kwielford

Teacher-librarians are often their own worst enemies in the marketing department. When we think of marketing, our service-oriented hackles are raised as we consider ourselves to be above the marketing mindset. We do good work, we know that it has lasting value, that it benefits our schools, and we do not see the need to make a nuisance of ourselves getting the point across. Talk about self-serving - the last thing our teachers and administrators want to hear is the library staff promoting itself and the library resource center.

While we admire library programs that excel in public relations, we understand the viewpoint described above because we shared it ourselves. It wasn't until we were asked to make a presentation about marketing (Marketing? Us? We don't do it - how will we talk about it?) that we realized that our style of marketing is subtle but it is definitely there. And furthermore, since we discovered that we do in fact market our program in various ways, we came to realize that our brand of marketing enhances our opportunities to expand and deepen our program. The focus could be described as "less talk and more action." We hope that some of the levels of marketing that are described in this article will find resonance with your program and you will see your way to enhance your advocacy in your school. Perhaps this approach can be viewed as a preliminary step to a bona fide public relations plan.

The primary difference between our concept of marketing and the traditional viewpoint is that we promote our actual programs and projects; we do not have separate strategies or marketing ideas that are used for the explicit purpose of promoting our school library. The promotion that our library receives from this type of marketing is a natural consequence of making our programs more visible. The various members of our school learning community are our audience; perhaps we should call the marketing of our program "learning community relations."

Our philosophy for the library media program is one that defines our mission as a means but not an end within the school. We do not consider marketing our library resource program to be worthy just for the sake of bolstering our self-esteem or our position in the building or district. Advocating for our program is generative. It is illustrative and therefore it motivates teachers and administrators to see the library media program with fresh eyes. That new slant is what we seek to enhance and broaden our program, all the while knowing that a strong library resource program will benefit our students academically and every which way. As each 'level' appreciates the marketing we do for the level above, the generative nature of this advocacy is realized. We often find ourselves in the position of starting an initiative that we then pass on to others to more fully develop. Enjoying the creative phase of project development necessitates giving up some of our 'babies'. And that brings us back to the library media program as a means and not an end in and of itself.

The following discussion illustrates each of the six levels of marketing as shown in the inset. We invite you to engage in your own marketing reflections and consider how you think about advocacy at each level. Perhaps, like us, your marketing is more of an attitude than an explicit plan.

Levels of Marketing

6. STATE AND NATIONAL
Practitioner as visionary

5. COMMUNITY
Awareness

4. ADMINISTRATION
Program Support

3. SCHOOL
Collaborative Environment

2. LIBRARY RESOURCE PROGRAM
Attitude for Success

1. BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
Setting the Foundation

Basic Assumptions

Setting the Foundation

Do your homework. There are some basic elements that must be paid attention to before all else. These basic assumptions fall into two categories, the physical and the professional:

• The physical concerns include books and computers, paper and toner, tables and chairs. First things first.
• Professional concerns include adequate (or working toward that goal) staffing and a shared vision (if there is more than one of you!).

As professionals we are familiar with Information power: Building partnerships for learning (AASL, 1998) and the information literacy standards described therein. As members of our school learning community we refer to our school's curriculum standards and our state learning standards. A comprehensive program evaluation can be found in Program evaluation: Library media services, published by the National Study of School Evaluation (Fitzpatrick, 1998). We 'walk our talk' by writing and following a mission statement that clearly states our role as it relates to all our learners. Before you proceed any further, understand that taking care of business at this level is necessary to set your foundation firmly and to proceed to the next levels of engagement.

Beyond the basics, read the books published by Greenwood, Libraries Unlimited, ALA, Linworth, Hi-Willow, and the other school library publishers (there are too many worthy titles to list here). You will find them to be helpful and encouraging. Keep current by reading the school library journals and join a school library electronic discussion list. Take advantage of those generous souls in our profession who have gone before us and have experiences, good and bad, to share.

Library Resource Program

Attitude for Success

It takes an attitude. Some of us come by this naturally. We put ourselves into every library research project and add twists and tweaks at every opportunity. If this does not describe you or your program, here are a few simple pointers to liven things up:

• We believe very strongly in our mission of curricular support. However, our definition of "curricular" is rather broad. When our students are studying China for their social science class, we play Chinese folk music on the CD player as an accompaniment to the students' research. We have music for most cultures and most decades covered by our classes. Our favorite musical enhancement was during our freshman orientation. The physical education classes came into the library to research the Olympics. As the students and teachers entered the library they were welcomed with John Williams' Olympic fanfare. Our goal is not to 'promote our program' but to empower the teacher by providing a dynamic learning environment for his or her students.
• Weeding is a practice that sometimes creates ruffled feathers. The teacher that uses the one resource one day annually is the one who will come looking for it two months after you weed it out of the collection. To prevent these occurrences and to share the ownership of the weeding of audio-visual materials, we created "Tropical Friday," when we invite our faculty to review all materials in the 'to-be-weeded' stage. Tropical Friday began on a cold Friday in the dead of winter; we strung up suns, wore Hawaiian shirts, played Jimmy Buffet music and served tropical juices and treats in our workroom. It sounds silly and it was a little bit, but it was also fun and memorable.
• As a good neighbor in the school, we invite various groups and committees to meet in the library. We serve as the school art gallery when we display art on modular walls every spring. We hang panels of the AIDS quilt and provide room and time for classes to view and discuss the quilt project.

These examples illustrate the attitude we have about our role in the school learning community. If you were in our school you would get the message that our program is an integral part of our school. Everything that we do reinforces that attitude. We are fortunate to have three professional teacher-librarians on our staff. As we started working together as a team, we learned about each other's strengths. We felt that our program would benefit if we could all function primarily in an area that suited our strengths. Certainly, all of us can function in any capacity as needed. It is in the discretionary areas that we go with our strengths and bring interested faculty and staff along for the ride. Fortunately, we all agree that not every idea works. We are always prepared to flop. We generate many ideas and sometimes the best idea may be a weak idea improved by input from another staff member.

School

Collaborative Environment

Think holistically. We strive to develop innovative programs that impact the entire school and bring it together as a single learning community. Ideally, the role of the library staff is one of facilitation and collaboration with other faculty and staff. We seek to share in the ownership of programs that cast a wide net and unexpectedly lure an unusual mixing of members of our school community. Some of these programs are now run by faculty in other departments, some were one-shot deals, and others we enjoy as annual fetes.

The Open Mike Café, now presented twice annually, started as an idea in the school library resource center. It is a poetry reading cafe held during lunch periods in the faculty cafeteria. The entire school community is invited. Since its inception, OMC has had standing room only. Students, teachers, staff (including support and custodial staff), and administrators participate. Like the other events described at this level of marketing, this event breaks down the walls within the school and makes us enjoy learning together. In order to organize the first OMC, we partnered with the two English teachers who sponsor our school's literary magazine. Their magazine editorial staff provided the student labor that we needed. The day following the first OMC, we received glowing comments in equal parts from students, support staff, and faculty. The OMCs are now organized by the literary magazine sponsors.

Spaceday 1999 started with an innovation grant from our library system. We learned about the NASA-sponsored celebration of space in 1998 from one of our special education teachers. Spaceday is celebrated in May. We wrote and received a grant that allowed us to purchase t-shirts, mugs, decorations, and prizes. Two science teachers were interested in participating prior to the event. We planned to view the webcast on a projection system, host a trivia contest and other guessing games, participate in a distance learning lecture from the Adler Planetarium, and have a Star Wars film festival running all day in our Little Theater. Our CyberWest (tech club) members wore Spaceday t-shirts and helped with the games and technology. We invited the junior high school tech club students and sponsor, community members, school board members, and science classes. More than 600 people attended our events and our school was listed in the Congressional Record.

Random Acts of Poetry is a project that continues annually. During National Poetry Month every April, we randomly stuff mailboxes in our school with poetry throughout the month. Teachers and staff post, read aloud, and share the poetry we distribute. Contributions come from faculty and staff - this year, an art teacher and a secretary made the first contributions. After writing about this project a number of years ago we now have samples from other schools' library staff who are also participating in Random Acts of Poetry.

And just for fun, we were the back-up singers (no, we can't sing but that didn't stop us) in the faculty band act for the school Variety Show. The band was composed of teachers (some of whom are now administrators) from the English, physical education, and foreign language departments. We had television broadcasting students produce a music video of our "gig."; if you must know, the song was Twist and Shout (Bush, 1997b).

Administration

Program Support

"They don't know what we do." It is a lament common to many of us. Our administrators do not have a clear picture of our mission, our daily work, or our place in the school learning community. Understand that it is our responsibility to relay to our administrators in the most effective manner feasible how we define our program. Administrators are busy people. It is not our aim to inundate them with trivial matters that illustrate our labor-intensive daily chores. We prefer to include our administrators as members of our learning community so that they will comprehend the integral role we have as a learning center in the school. Administrators are invited to every event and in-service. We share our involvement in the community and in our profession with them. As the role of technology filters through our program we strive to clarify the place that it has to enhance, but not replace, other valuable resources. Our proactive stance increases our visibility without creating a management-by-crisis atmosphere. We do not adhere to the "no news is good news" mantra of many departments with regard to their administrators. We prefer to share our program with our administrators so that in those (inevitable) times of crisis we do not feel like we are crying wolf.

Standards, re-certification, and the professional growth program in our state and district are now including areas that relate directly to the school library program. Information literacy, technology, differentiated instruction, and other markers of education in the 21st century reside comfortably within our domain. We empower our administrators by sharing our knowledge and our role as educational leaders in these areas. And, in return, we receive the program support that is essential to continue to provide the type of program that can impact our mutual bottom line, student achievement.

Community Awareness Awareness is a two-way street. We feel that we have a responsibility to be a part of the local community. Maine West is the only public high school in our community. There are many ways that we like to make contact with local institutions. Sometimes we enrich standing programs, and other times we may create a new project (Spaceday, for example) that includes community members.

One of the simplest ways that we include the community in our program is to invite public library staff to our library to register students and staff for library cards. During our National Library Week Open House, we invite library staff and set up a registration table for them. This is a great way for the students to make the connection between the libraries. The Des Plaines Public Library had a poster project where a photographer was taking photos of various library users for display as posters in the public library. Each of the teacher-librarians went to the public library to be photographed, so as public library users entered their library, they saw photographs of us on the poster, creating a bridge between the public and school libraries. We also made an opportunity for the public library staff who work with teenagers to shadow us for a day. Again, this is a small step but it helped the public library staff get a greater understanding of how we work with our students.

We visited the Kiwanis during a lunch meeting. When we were writing a grant that included a broadcasting component, one of the teacher-librarians attended the cable commission meetings at the civic center. We attended training in the Great Books program (even though there is not a program in the high school) along with the middle school and elementary teacher-librarians and parent volunteers.

In our school library community, we network both informally and formally with the feeder school teacher-librarians and our fellow high school teacher-librarians in neighboring school districts. We attend meetings and will just call up a colleague as needed. We feel very strongly that networking strengthens all of our programs; none of us operates in isolation and we all learn from each other.

State and National

Practitioner as Visionary

We walk our talk. We also have a responsibility, as professionals, to participate in the grand discussion that is reserved for practitioners. In the years since we started building our program, members of our school library's professional staff have (collectively) earned an educational administration certificate, an educational administration master's degree, and a doctorate in educational psychology. We take what we learn in the classroom and through research and we apply it to practical situations. We take that mix and consult with our teachers and administrators with a broad scope of understanding regarding their work. To take our program to this level, and not to participate in ongoing discussions amongst teacher-librarians would be to fall short of our positions as professionals.

Our program and our individual work have been recognized in various ways. In each instance, we sought out the recognition. We apply for awards, we seek out and write grant applications, and we contribute to school library and education journals. We do not always get funded but we are guaranteed to not receive funding for those grants for which we do not apply. Yes, it's true, in the school library biz: no guts, no glory. The important message here is that the 'glory' is generative and the visibility garnered filters through each level of relationships noted in this article. A stamp of approval from an outside source carries great weight with school districts. Each group identified in our school learning community has its own peer group. As we share ownership of our program with them, they then share in our recognition.

There are many ways to participate in our profession at the state and national levels. Some teacher-librarians are organizationally oriented and enjoy committee work. Some may like to write for journals, while others may prefer to present in-services and workshops. Go with your strength and you will find wonderful colleagues who are willing to share and learn in every corner of our profession. Start by reading the journals, attending the conferences, and participating in local workshops. Avail yourself of all we have to offer and before you know it you will be a contributing member in the school library conversation.

Conclusion

If you noticed that the levels of marketing reflect the learning community as described in Information power: Building partnerships for learning, we would agree with you. These levels are not revolutionary by any means. We have distinguished among these six levels based on the focus of our program as we relate to each group. We do feel that there is a hierarchical arrangement. 'Basic Assumptions' is a foundation that must be built before developing any other part of the school library program. Then, taking care of business within the library resource center at a fundamental level comes next, before looking to build school and administrative support. Going outside the school to the community and to the professional school library community follows as a natural progression of the program.

We are not so coy as to deny the marketing benefits of involvement at each of the levels described. However, it is the quality of the programming that carries the day in our scenario.

Ralph Waldo Emerson could be describing our program when he commented, "What you do speaks so loudly, I can't hear what you say."

References

American Association of School Librarians and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. (1998). Information power: Building partnerships for learning. Chicago: American Library Association.

Bush, G. (1997a). Speak, Muses: Random acts of poetry. School Library Journal, 43(9), 139.

Bush, G. (1997b). Twist & shout: It starts with an attitude. Teacher Librarian, 25(2), 20-21.

Fitzpatrick, K. A. (1998). Program evaluation: Library media services - A comprehensive guide for standards-based program evaluation committed to continuous improvement. Schaumburg, IL: National Study of School Evaluation.

Gail Bush is curriculum librarian and Merrilee Andersen Kwielford is the technology librarian at Maine West High School in Des Plaines, Illinois. Their library program was recognized as the National School Library Program of the Year in 1996. They can be reached at gbush@maine207west.k12.il.us or mkwielford@maine207west.k12.il.us.