Campaign for Strong School Libraries!

I'm a member of the California School Library Association (CSLA) board, but I'm writing as an individual to share with you my excitement that CSLA has just launched the 2011 Campaign for Strong School Libraries, a public awareness campaign to increase understanding about the importance of strong school libraries for our children. See the details below in the message that went out to our membership from Connie Williams, a CSLA Past President and Chair of the Campaign. If you live in California, I hope you have already learned about this and visited the site. I also want to share this with all of you outside California for several reasons:

• We would love any all of you to support our campaign, and/or
• You can use our ideas in your own state, and/or
• You can visit our Campaign LIBRARY STORE and get great stuff for your library, you, and your stakeholders

More information:

http://www.csla.net/pdf/CSLACCfSSLAnnouncement.pdf

http://www.csla.net/pdf/CSLAIllustratorsGaloreLibraryStore.pdf

These are difficult times for school libraries everywhere. Working together, we can make them strong.

Do please feel free to spread any or all of this message far and wide to colleagues and friends.

Here's the letter from Connie:

The California School Library Association (CSLA) announces the launch of the 2011 California Campaign for Strong School Libraries, a public awareness campaign to increase understanding about the importance of strong school libraries for our children.

Through a variety of projects and programs, the Campaign for Strong School libraries is targeting areas throughout California to raise awareness about the importance of strong school libraries for our children.  Some of these projects include:

ê  Expanding the CSLA 2.0 tutorials to include:

A:  Summer 2.0 fun for teens @ their library [public library summer programs]

B:  Digital citizenship tutorial – targeted to teacher librarians and other educators so that they are comfortable teaching about and working with Internet Safety, cyber citizenship and information ethics applications

C:  Administrators 2.0 tutorials in process to provide tech learning for those decision makers in schools and school districts

ê  Campaign LIBRARY STORE:

Book and library-themed gifts for yourself and your library-loving friends!  Includes the incredible artwork of children’s book illustrators who have given us art to advocate for strong libraries. Watch for and widely share the announcement about the Campaign LIBRARY STORE.

ê  Bus Ads in targeted areas in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Help us spread the word about strong school libraries!

Join the public awareness campaign today by contributing your tax-deductable donation to support new ‘action advocacy’ projects as developed by CSLA members to promote library service, instruction and legislative action.  Invite your district and regional library organizations to make a donation to buy regional bus banners and ads.  Donate your time as well so that we can build a coalition of library supporters who will work together to ensure that our students have access to the strong school libraries they need to become lifelong learners.

To join or learn more about the campaign, please visit: http://librarycampaign.csla.net/.

Let the Campaign begin!

Connie Williams

Chair, California Campaign for Strong School Libraries