Speak NOW or be silenced
You have been receiving messages about TLA sponsored Tennessee Library Legislation Day. I am including the latest information again. For the past 4 years I have attended this and have witnessed the library advocates including library boards, regular citizens, parents, academic, special, public and school librarians gathering together in the morning to prepare unified messages to send to our Tennessee Legislators. In the afternoon they schedule brief visits with their school and home legislators to simply tell our story. Each year school libraries are the least represented group. We all know why! We are working. You could easily request a parent, principal, or library volunteer to attend on your behalf and speak for your students. You could attend this one day event and have a very powerful voice. By attending you not only impact your legislator by sending a message on how important school libraries are, you also share with the other attendees who then can go out and send your message along to their legislator. Your voice is needed to provide them with the stories to speak on your behalf. There are some other ways you can speak up. Send detailed stories of the state of your library to your TASL leadership. Tina Johnson, Lynn Caruther, Margaret Hausauer will attend and speak for you. What do you want them to say? Give them specifics. If you are scared, contact us. We are here to support you. I will be accompany some first-time goers to their individual meetings to help in learning to speak to our legislators. We will help. Legislators are people with 2 ears just like us, they simply haven’t heard our stories lately. Imagine the impact you could have for all Tennessee schools. 2-3 sentences is so little to ask in the letter below. Will you speak?
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From: “Julian, Julie”
Subject: Fifty Ways to Love Tennessee Libraries*
1. Register at the TLA website and make your plans to attend Tennessee Library Legislative Day on February 27th, where you’ll be sharing the love of libraries with an outstanding gathering of library advocates. Registering sooner is really better than later–for starters, there’s our final lunch headcount we’ll need to give the Sheraton on Friday, February 23rd. Please let us count you in!
2. You’re already registered for Tennessee Library Legislative Day? Call or e-mail a fellow library supporter and encourage them to attend, if they haven’t registered yet. Maybe you can even share the ride to Nashville Public Library on the morning of the 27th
3. Share a good library love story! E-mail John Nye at jen508@citlink.net by Monday, February 19th with a brief description of a unique or extraordinary way that a library advocate or group has demonstrated their love/support of your library. As much as we hate to cut a good story short, please keep your description to 2 or 3 sentences in length. Feel free to supply names and contact information. John will prepare a compilation of these tributes for the packets that will be given to library advocates AND legislators who attend Tennessee Library Legislative Day.
4. Provide information about your library to your legislators. If you’re coming to Tennessee Library Legislative Day, bring your business cards and/or library brochures, bookmarks, etc. to give to your local senator and representative. They’ll have a packet that these will fit into nicely.
5. If you’re not able to attend on the 27th, you can mail the items mentioned in #4 to your legislators, with a note expressing your appreciation for their support of Tennessee’s libraries. Handwritten notes are a rarity these days, so wouldn’t it be nice to send one to your legislators?
6. Offer to provide research help to your legislators or invite them to schedule a visit to your library in which they can visit with their constituents, if possible.
7. Come to Tennessee Library Legislative Day so you can enter your name in the morning drawing for an iPod that has been graciously donated by ENA as a door prize. You must be present to win! How will this show your love? Your presence at this event is an expression of your love of libraries, and your applause for the fellow library advocate who wins the door prize increases our team spirit, a lovely thing indeed!
8. I don’t have time to complete a list of 50 ways, but you’ve got the idea. I recommend participating in Tennessee Library Legislative Day as the best way to maximize your efforts for Tennessee’s libraries.
Happy Valentine’s Day
