Library staff in school and public libraries are incredible! In your library, it can be easy to feel like you are a one person force of nature. Developing the library program and keeping up with day-to-day duties can be exhausting. Sometimes it feels like National Library Week is just “one more thing” to added to our to-do pile.
We have to remember that many of our community partners and non-library colleagues have a lot going on in their world and may not be aware that it’s National Library Week. If you don’t celebrate yourself, it can’t be guaranteed that others will be celebrating you.
How to celebrate National Library Week in simple ways:
ALA has fliers that are easy to print out. I print out little “post-it” sized fliers and throw them in coworkers mailboxes. I’m a fan of adding in some candy and bad puns to make it more fun. I’ve used:
– “We’re lucky that we have so many SMARTIES who use library databases.”
– “Teachers who support the library are LIFESAVERS!”
– “Have you spoke to your librarian REESEently about what the library can do for you?”
After the fliers have been handed out, we are able to use National Library Week as an advocacy piece. I love to highlight coworkers who are doing something awesome in my school library, and you can remind your coworkers that you are always happy to help make it happen! If you are looking for statistics and anecdotes, check out the Libraries Transform page.
Create a board for students and staff to share the library love. It can be a simple Post-it bulletin board. It can also be a digital bulletin board using padlet or flipgrid.
Share National Library Week resources on social media. Feel free to tag library friends and encourage your library network. Check out AASL’s PSA from Jason Reynolds about School Library Month. Also, YALSA has a wealth of advocacy resources on their web site.
National Library Week may be seem like extra work, but by leveraging it as an advocacy opportunity, it’s a worthwhile investment. You never know what potential connections you could make!
