may06b.indd


charting our future 
Deborah Lee 

Advocacy from the front lines 
A symposium at Mississippi State University Libraries 

Why should a cataloger care about li­brary advocacy? How does advocacy 
help my library? Isn’t advocacy the role of 
the library dean? These and more questions 
were explored at the “Advocacy from the 
front lines” symposium, hosted by Mississippi 
State University (MSU) Libraries on Febru­
ary 16. The symposium drew more than 40 
librarians from five universities for the day­
long exploration of advocacy in academic 
libraries. ACRL President Camila Alire was 
the keynote speaker. 

Advocacy from the front lines 
The workshop opened with remarks by Dean 
Frances Coleman and MSU Provost Peter 
Rabideau. Both stressed the importance of 
academic libraries and the role that advocacy 
can play in promoting the library to multiple 
constituencies. Camila Alire then gave the 
keynote address on advocacy in today’s 
academic library. 

Alire addressed some of the common 
misconceptions about front­line advocacy. 
Front­line advocacy is everyone’s responsi­
bility, not just that of the library director or 
upper­level administrators. While advocacy is 
a key component to any contemporary library 
dean, this level of advocacy is usually targeted 
to comparable level administrators (or higher) 
across campus. As Alire pointed out in her 
September 2005 C&RL News article, “frontline, 
grassroots advocacy is having those academic 
library staff—who are working with students 
and faculty on a daily basis and who already 
have the competency and credibility in deal­
ing with their customers—take the leadership 
in advocating for the library at the campus 

level.”1 Who better to take on this role than the 
men and women working at the circulation 
desk, serving on committees across campus 
with faculty, or teaching a library instruction 
class? And Alire emphasized that advocacy 
was everyone’s responsibility, not just the 
librarians. The library “team” comprised of ad­
ministrators, librarians, staff, and students all 
have a role to play in developing and imple­
menting a successful advocacy program. 

These daily opportunities to build support 
for the library can have tremendous payoffs, 
but they do require an investment on the part 
of the library. Everyone must feel empowered 
to serve as advocates for the library. Success­
ful advocacy requires training, including the 
development of a library advocacy plan with a 
succinct and consistent message. Realistically, 
not everyone will be suited to be a successful 
library advocate, but those who are willing to 
take on this role need to be recognized for the 
contribution they make to the library. 

Next, Associate Dean for Public Services 
Harry LLull set the stage for the afternoon 
session. LLull provided some background 
information about the advocacy movement 
and challenged the workshop participants to 
think of advocacy in terms of both librarians 
and library professionals. 

Breakout group topics 
It’s one thing to listen to someone else talk 
about advocacy; it’s another to try to come 

Deborah Lee is associate professor/coordinator of 
library instructional services and associate director of 
the Center for Teaching and Learning at Mississippi State 
University, e-mail: dlee@library.mssstate.edu 
© 2006 Deborah Lee 

302C&RL News May 2006

mailto:dlee@library.mssstate.edu


Speakers at the Advocacy from the Front Line Sympo­
sium included Dean Frances Coleman, Provost Peter 
Rabideau, ACRL President Camila Alire, and Associate 
Dean Harry LLull. 

up with programs that put these principles in 
place. Librarians are natural problem solvers. 
To help the participants fully explore various 
dimensions of advocacy from the front line, 
five scenarios depicting common advocacy 
challenges were developed for use in break­
out session groups. Participants divided into 
groups to address the following topics and 
then returned to the entire group to share the 
results of their discussions. Alire served as the 
facilitator of the afternoon session, prompting 
each group to fully discuss its topic and ask 
questions about the proposed programs. 

Each group explored one of fi ve scenarios: 
1) Your library has decided to initiate a 

program focusing on high­ and mid­level 
administrators and the information needs 
they may have personally or as part of their 
administrative duties. This adopt­an­admin­
istrator program is meant to be proactive 
and to demonstrate to administrators across 
campus the value of the information services 
of the library. Develop a plan of action to 
implement such a program. What should be 
emphasized and what training or mentoring 
of librarians would be needed? How would 
such a program work as part of the library’s 
advocacy platform? 

2) Your library has set a long­term goal of 
interacting with new teaching faculty begin­
ning with recruitment and following through 
to tenure. Develop a plan of action to imple­
ment such a program. Identify the different 

stages from recruitment to tenure and the 
type of services or programs that might 
be helpful for new faculty through those 
stages. How could the library use such a 
program as an advocacy initiative? 

3) Your library has noticed that al­
though the electronic library is showing 
increasing use, there has been a de­
crease in the use of the physical library. 
Librarians are having less and less direct 
contact with students. Develop a student 
library advocacy program that will go to 
the students where they are and create 
awareness among students as to how 
librarians could help them be more ef­
fective and efficient in carrying out their 

class assignments. 
4) Your library feels there is a need to make 

faculty more aware across campus of the very 
specialized expertise library faculty have in the 
areas of technical services, systems, and special 
collections. Develop an advocacy program that 
could be implemented that would address 
the needs of teaching faculty in the area of 
organizing, accessing, and preserving their 
personal collections. What type of advocacy 
role would be appropriate for these areas? 

5) The collections in your library are going 
more and more electronic with less and less 
physical materials for both serials and books. 
Your library wants to implement an advocacy 
program that will inform teaching faculty of 
the new roles of library faculty as the library, 
its collections, and services go through this 
transformation. Develop a plan of action that 
explains to teaching faculty the new roles 
and services in the library for this changing 
environment. How could such an advocacy 
program also inform faculty of the need for 
the library to be allocated more resources to 
make this transformation? 

How did this afternoon session work 
out? Fantastic! The members of each group 
represented different libraries and different 
areas within the library. The resulting group 
presentations offered innovative ideas for ad­
dressing each aspect of advocacy. Group one 
proposed the development of an “A­Team” for 
administrators that could serve as information 

May 2006  303 C&RL News 



first responders. Group two came up with a 
hilarious scenario that took new faculty “from 
blind date to golden anniversary.” The group 
proposed a plan for working with faculty that 
began with the interview process (before hire) 
and ran through the point of retirement. Group 
three came up with strategies for reaching stu­
dents through advocacy initiatives, including 
slogans such as “Like Lowe’s, We Can Show 
You How!” 

Group four attacked one of the more often 
asked questions concerning advocacy—how 
does advocacy affect those folks who work 
behind the scenes, providing valuable but 
often unacknowledged services, such as 
cataloging, systems, and archives. The group 
came up with innovative suggestions for creat­
ing unique alliances with administrators and 
faculty that could illustrate the importance 
of access, organization, and preservation of 
information. Group five tackled the issue of 
the electronic library and the changing roles 
of librarians. 

In each case, Alire questioned the group 
about its proposed strategy, sometimes intro­
ducing a new element to the challenge. How 
can these approaches help libraries in times of 
tight (or reducing) budgets? What strategic alli­
ances do these types of initiatives encourage? 
How would each group prioritize the work of 
advocacy with other work in the library? 

Participants loved the opportunity to tackle 
realistic advocacy challenges and many indi­
cated they hope to continue these discussions 
in their own libraries. One group found they 
liked their proposed solution so well that 
they have continued their exploration of the 
problem and hope to publish an article on the 
topic soon. Overall, the participants found that 
the symposium challenged their assumptions 
about advocacy and provided the foundation 
for a continued examination of advocacy is­
sues in academic libraries. 

Note 
1. Camila A. Alire, “Advocating to advance 

academic libraries: The 2005–2006 ACRL 
President’s focus” C&RL News, vol. 66, no. 8 
(September 2005): 590­91, 614. 

304C&RL News May 2006