Telling the Library Story Toolkit: Iowa Library Service Areas and the State Library of Iowa

This would be VERY interesting to librarians... Telling the Library Story Toolkit. From the website:

Telling the Library Story, just like storytelling, brings together elements that weave a compelling tale of the library's value. Storytelling includes a plot (Why are libraries valuable?); props, techniques and scripts (How do you effectively tell the story? How do you fit words together to tell the story?); characters and setting (Who are the important people in the story? What is the environment in which the characters find themselves?); and audience (To whom are we telling the story?).

The "story" comprises of 4 main parts:

1. Plot
2. Props, Techniques and Scripts
3. Characters and Setting
4. Audience

Highlight: There are sample speeches and powerpoint templates under "Props, Techniques and Scripts". Loads of other useful stuff.

The Iowa Library Service Areas and the State Library of Iowa have put together this toolkit, which I see it as a structured template providing guidelines on how libraries can "sell their story" in order to get funding and buy-in from stakeholders.

The entire "story" is really a Pathfinder to related websites and resources. A pathfinder is something librarians compile all the time, but this is presented in a refreshing manner. Very clever.

I was telling some of my colleagues that NLB, in partnership with the Library Association of Singapore plus other major library institutions, could play an advocacy role to promote the use and awareness of libraries and information centres in schools, private organisations and government agencies.

We could provide such a Toolkit appropriate to the local context. For instance, teachers put in charged of managing their school's library (otherwise called Media Resouce Lab/ Centre) would be able to obtain ideas and download ready-made templates to help them manage and promote their libraries to students.

I was blogging about Machinima today. Naturally, I'd include this as part of the Toolkit.

[Tag: role of libraries, library advocacy]