26 Canadian Library Associations Set the Foundations for Joint Advocacy Strategy

In late March, the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) called a meeting of library associations to come up with a joint advocacy strategy to raise the national public profile of the services and expertise offered by libraries, librarians, library technicians, archivists and information professionals.

13 associations were physically represented at the meeting at the University of Windsor. People from 13 other associations joined via conference call.

As CALL President Annette Demers explained:

"We all know what is happening to our libraries in this country; we know the challenges that libraries face in the 21st century. At the same time, we inherently know that the skill set of library professionals is very relevant to the needs of an information age. The question that we need to grapple with as library leaders, is, 'How can we work together to wake people up to this reality? What can we do to make sure those libraries, and all of the knowledge that library professionals bring, is optimized instead of abandoned - in today’s digital information explosion?' "

The next steps include organizing a working group whose mandate would begin with the following tasks:

• Compile a list of advocacy initiatives and tools that are currently available in partner associations, so as to avoid duplication and redundancy;
• Compile a list of resources that associations are able to contribute to the initiative;
• Prepare a collaboration plan for consideration;
• Prepare a memorandum of understanding for signature by like-minded associations.