ALA Unveils New Web-Based Advocacy Tool

This article originally appeared in SLJ's Extra Helping. Sign up now!

By SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 1/28/2009 2:05:00 PM

Listen up library advocates: the American Library Association (ALA) has just unveiled a new Web-based resource that will help make the case that libraries make a difference in the lives of children and teens.

“Add It Up: Libraries Make the Difference in Youth Development and Education” is divided into three age groups: preschool, kindergarten to middle school, and teens, and it offers talking points, statistics to back them up, and links to the several important studies that show the impact of libraries on improving literacy skills and student achievement.

The latest resource tool is part of “Advocacy U,” ALA’s new initiative geared to providing tools, training, and resources to library advocates to achieve real advocacy goals in real situations at the local level.

“A growing body of research and studies now proves what the library community already knows is true: libraries are indispensable in the lives of children and teens,” says Keith Michael Fiels, ALA’s executive director. “The problem is that until now, it has been difficult to distill all that data into products that library advocates can easily use and funders can easily understand.”

The goal is to help library advocates articulate the “positive, transformational impact that public libraries and school library media programs have on children and teens,” Fiels adds.

The ALA Office for Library Advocacy created this project in partnership with the ALA Office for Research and Statistics, and ALA’s three youth divisions: the American Association of School Librarians, the Association for Library Service to Children, and the Young Adult Library Services Association.

Updates and improvements to the Web site will be made regularly.