Chapter Relations Conclave at ALA Annual Conference

Thank you for welcoming me in such fine fashion! I am honored to have been asked to be your keynote speaker for this important program, "Library Advocacy Starting at Home." Thank you also for your very nice and very flattering flyer publicizing this session.

I understand from Gerald Hodges that about 1/3 of you are trustees or friends of libraries and that 2/3 of you are librarians. I'm interested if your ratio has held, Gerald, so I will ask for a show of hands.

How many here are users, supporters, trustees and friends of libraries?

And, how many here are librarians?

Actually, you could say that first question was a trick, since all of us should have raised our hands to identify ourselves as users and supporters of libraries!

Whatever your category, I thank you for being here. Library supporters and librarians are among the most motivated, serious and organized people I have ever known! You believe so strongly in the value libraries, and you work hard. I mean, here we are on a Saturday afternoon in Chicago and all of us are in a meeting! Is that dedication?!

I refer to our session this afternoon as a meeting, but the flyer I received called it the "Chapter Relations Conclave at ALA Annual Conference." Being intrigued at the use of the word conclave, I checked [Random House unabridged, 1971] and found that conclave means a private or secret meeting. That general definition derives from a narrower meaning -- that is, the place in which the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church meet in private to elect the pope. Conclave can also mean an assembly or gathering, especially one that has special authority, power or influence. We will, I am sure, want to adopt that last meaning for our session today!

B) JHS' Background with Libraries

If you came this afternoon expecting to hear a librarian, I'm afraid you are going to be disappointed. I am a lawyer. Although I am not a librarian, however, I have had the good fortune to be a life-long user and supporter of libraries.

My first awareness of libraries was through my parents' work in helping to establish the first free public library in Western Springs, Illinois. In the 1920's, we collected materials and donated books from the family library. Later, during high school and college, I was fortunate to have access to the excellent public libraries in Winnetka and Wilmette, Illinois. Finally, to help pay my tuition at Northwestern Law School, I worked in the law school library.

When I left Wilmette for Troy, Illinois (pop. 1,280) in 1960, I was dismayed to find that the community had no public library. Joining with other concerned neighbors, I helped to solicit funds, books, space and volunteer staff to establish the first library in Troy. We started the library with no tax support. Today the Troy Public Library has a full-time librarian, as well as plans for a larger building.

In the Spring of 1975, without any prior warning, Carl Albert, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, called and asked if I would accept membership on the Advisory Council of the White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services -- the First WHCLIS.

The work I did planning for the 1979 WHCLIS brought me into contact with people who have fueled my interest in libraries. Like so many of my contacts with library supporters, I formed friendships with many throughout the library community. I came in contact with people like Bessie Moore from Little Rock, Arkansas; Joe Shubert, New York State Librarian; David Gergen, former McNeill/Leherer commentator and former Communications Advisor to President Clinton; and I renewed an old friendship with Charles Benton, Chairman Emeritus of NCLIS and Chair of the 1979 WHCLIS.

C) Overview of Talk

That's a little about Jeanne Simon and my long-term advocacy for libraries. I hope my remarks and questions can excite and inspire you this afternoon. Even if my comments provoke or irritate you, if they also spur you to action, then I will have achieved my purpose.

I want to pose several questions for you this afternoon. I don't expect you to develop the right answers to these questions during your table talks. I do hope, however, that these questions will lead you along some new paths and will prompt some fresh looks at how effective advocacy functions, about where it should originate, about what underlies it, about what its basic purposes are.

D) Questions regarding Advocacy Efforts

One of the most insightful articles in the recent library literature that I have seen is titled, "The Politics of LSCA during the Reagan and Bush Administrations: An Analysis," by Peter F. Fuller, in the July 1994 issue of THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY. Mr. Fuller introduces his analysis as follows:

This article began as a case study for a seminar in budgetary politics. The intent was to employ the techniques of policy analysis to examine an interesting historical phenomenon -- the failure of both the Reagan and Bush administrations to eliminate the Library Services and Construction Act. . . .

The case of LSCA also proved interesting because it presented an opportunity for a contextual analysis of library policy. Libraries invariably exist within larger and more complex organizations, for example, city and state government, colleges and universities, and business corporations, and these institutions often adhere to their own rules and logic. Sociologists have noted that such large organizations are marked more by conflict than buy consensus. Librarians need to pay greater attention to the politics of this organizational environment if libraries are to thrive. (pp.294-5)

Drawing from Fuller's analysis, then, my first two questions are:

1. Are we sufficiently aware of the context in which we operate and
2. Do we gear our advocacy efforts accordingly?

In REDESIGNING LIBRARY SERVICES: A MANIFESTO, Michael Buckland says that

"the mission of a library is to support the mission of the institution or the interests of the population served." (p.3)

Herb White puts it another way -- that of libraries' supporting larger societal agendas. I think librarians and those who govern libraries are pretty careful about designing services to meet needs of users and potential users.

However, I'm not sure that we gear our advocacy efforts with the same care and attention that we devote to the structure of information services or budgets. We may become so enveloped in the rightness of our causes that we fail to look up or out to discover what the exterior climate is, what other public services are advocating for and why, whether and how libraries relate or compete with those efforts. We need to remember Mr. Fuller's comment,

Libraries invariably exist within larger and more complex organizations, for example, city and state government, colleges and universities, and business corporations. . . .

3) My third question is,

Do our advocacy efforts focus more on preserving and expanding services or preserving and expanding our institutions?

That's a hard one for those of us who love the concept and the concrete reality of a library and who may have devoted a life-time of work to an institution, a community, or a physical structure. However, we need to know the difference between the ends and the means and we must be careful to clearly separate these in our public messages.

4) The fourth query is whether our advocacy efforts focus on services themselves or on access to services.

This point may seem arcane, but bear with me. The point was brought out in a discussion the Commission hosted in September 1994 with federal government officials. Participants had some uncomfortable and some provocative things to say to us about libraries and the information superhighway and about the status and prospects of libraries generally. This was one of their points: that the services themselves, not just access to the services, are what need to be emphasized.

5) Those federal officials from the Administration and Congress attending the NCLIS Briefing last September said something else that surprised me. They indicated that the depiction of the public library as a safety net for public access to the information infrastructure may not benefit libraries or their range of users or potential users. That point leads me to my fifth set of questions:

Are we marginalizing libraries, are we painting them into corners, are we short-circuiting their potential when we concentrate just on libraries' functions to serve those who would otherwise be information have-nots?

6) We who work in behalf of libraries and information services have long-standing commitments to serving the disadvantaged and I am not suggesting we relinquish this commitment. What I do suggest is that, in our advocacy efforts, we also pay attention to the fact we serve a broad range of the community. My sixth question then is,

Are we demonstrating that we serve the advantaged as well as the disadvantaged? Are we serving our community, campus and corporate leaders, our opinion leaders, our decision-makers and policy-makers and are we in turn getting that message across in our advocacy efforts?

Are we likelier to have an adult new reader or a company president as our witness at a budget hearing? Please understand that I do not consider one more important than the other. My point is that we must serve both and that we need both actively involved in our advocacy efforts.

7) Focusing on the problem of "information have-nots" may come from a threat-orientation. My seventh question is,

What would it mean and what would it require for us to become more opportunity-oriented?

Do we dare to deal only with the positive? Do we dare to deal only with potential, and not address problems?

I do not mean to brush aside the very real problems many libraries have with resources. However, my point is that as advocates we need to extol the life-altering and society-changing potential of libraries and we need to showcase the individuals and groups for whom this potential has been realized -- including the advantaged as well as the disadvantaged!

8) My eighth and final query is,

As library advocates, do we communicate with and seek feedback and evaluation from non-librarians and non-library advocates?

Do we talk too much with each other? Do we talk only with each other? Are we singing to the converted? For those of you who are trustees, how long has it been since you talked with the board of another community agency to compare notes and strategies and help strengthen each other's efforts? How long has it been, for you library friends, since you sat down with supporters of the symphony or the museum? Do you belong to the Chamber of Commerce? Do you belong to the League of Women Voters? Do you carry your commitment and advocacy beyond the community of library supporters?

Here again, my point is obvious. We need people who are not librarians or library trustees or library friends talking to us. We need people who are not librarians talking for libraries. We need effective, committed, politically sensitive advocates who understand the value of partnerships, collaboration, and cooperation.

E) Hillary Rodham Clinton

And what better advocate than public figures like Hillary Rodham Clinton? I was delighted to see an article by her published in the June 21, 1995, issue of THE NEW YORK TIMES, titled "Arts for Our Sake." The article was based on her remarks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this month. Mrs. Clinton, says, in part,

"One of the great success of the arts in America is that they are not the preserve of any 'cultural elite.' Through museums, libraries, schools, dance companies and concerts, the arts are truly part of the public domain, accessible to all and capable of encouraging every person's artistic expression and sensibility."

The arts, of course, are one vein in the rich traditions of this country. Mrs. Clinton's article concluded by noting the

". . .values we claim to honor and the. . .cultural traditions in which democracy has flourished for 218 years. . . .Now is no time to turn our backs on that legacy or its promise."

Legacy and promise. What powerful words, and what inspiration I hope they bring to all of us.

E) Conclusion

Let me close this talk as I began -- by quoting a dictionary definition. To advocate is to speak in favor of, to recommend. An advocate is one who argues for a cause, a supporter or defender, a person who pleads on another's behalf. Advocacy is active support, as of a cause. It is giving aid and encouragement.

I truly know of no worthier cause than America's libraries and information services and I expect that your presence here this afternoon means we share that view. Together our commitment and our advocacy must combine in the future to build on the legacy and the promise of our National treasure -- our libraries.

Thank you very much for attending this program, for your interest and attention, and for the work you are about to do.

I don't know what specific approach Margo Crist, Gerald Hodges or others have in mind for your table talks. However, I hope you will come up with some nontraditional ideas and approaches. I hope my questions help you look at advocacy differently and to inspire you towards new achievements and opportunities.

Thank you again.