Advocacy, it’s all brass tacks from here. In the current environment, with multiple challenges to content, librarians must take action.

A new program is set to lend the skills needed to proactively engage a range of complex issues to ensure strong libraries into the future.

Open to library workers and students, the ­Legal Landscape of Librarianship (L3) Forum takes place online February 18–20, 2025.

The Forum is a project of READCON: A Curriculum for Library Readiness, Advocacy, and ­­Community ­Empowerment, a federally funded grant overseen by faculty from the University of Iowa (U of I) School of Library and Information Science; the University of South Carolina iSchool; and the University of North Carolina Greensboro Department of Information, ­Library, and Research Sciences.

Public, school, and academic library personnel are welcome to participate, along with students enrolled in an ALA-accredited MLIS program or a school-library certification program. Three tracks comprise the L3 Forum: rights and options for private citizens, employees, and organizations. Participants will work in small groups (­sessions will not be recorded to protect privacy) and explore several topics, including Parents’ Bill of Rights & the Attempted Criminalization of Librarianship; ­Governance of a Public Library: Public vs Private Interests; Fair Use for K12 Schools, ­Libraries and ­Archives; and Privacy & Confidentiality in School Libraries: FERPA and COPPA.
“Librarians are having to deal with advocacy in a much broader range of ways,” says Lucy Santos Green, PhD, instructional designer for READCON, who directs the U of I program. For instance, “How do you talk about best practices for your profession as separate from a political stance when an outside group is politicizing your profession?”

Difficult conversations 101

The READCON website offers a suite of self-directed, free courses on handling book censorship, crisis communication, civic engagement, and more. To train library practitioners in building strong community relationships, ­managing ­difficult situations, and engaging ­stakeholders and leaders, April Dawkins, PhD, a professor at the ­iSchool of UNC-Greensboro, and Santos Green ­secured a nearly $250,000 grant for a two-year ­project from the Institute of Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.

“The whole purpose of projects like READCON is to help people approach these situations from a proactive stance,” says Santos Green. “Instead of waiting for the difficult conversation to come to you, you are practicing those difficult conversations, and exchanging ideas with other people.” Working with other organizations and building partnerships are not innate abilities, she adds. “People have to be formally guided through that skill set.”

READCON courses are asynchronous and include video/audio lectures and readings, with transcripts available in Spanish, French, and English.

John Chrastka, EveryLibrary executive director, asserts that control of education and related funding rests with local and regional authorities, rather than federal ("The Seven Bills That Will Safeguard the Future of School Librarianship"). So school library supporters should focus their efforts there.

As Santos Green puts it: “I can’t change what Ted Cruz thinks about school librarianship in the state of Texas, but I can change what my school principal thinks about librarianship in the state of Texas.
“And I can change what my PTA president thinks about it, and I can change what the third grade teacher thinks about it, and I can change what five fifth grade boys think about it. And that’s gonna be a bigger impact.”