Library Snapshot Day

ALA has really earned every penny of membership dues this year. I am starting to feel like my blog is becoming one long commercial for ALA events and services. There is just so much going on with libraries (good, bad, and ugly) that it is amazing we have to still beat it into the public consciousness that libraries are essential AND that they will all go away unless supported through public money. --And for you social conservatives, we cannot fund libraries through private money. This is a bad, bad, thing and your mothers would be ashamed of you and wash your mouth out with Lifebuoy for even mentioning it!--

Library Snapshop Day is a phenomenal push towards marketing and PR for libraries. It is a homegrown springboard campaign to capture some of what we information folks do in our complex jobs from day to day. Here is ALA's summary of national campaign:

Library Snapshot Day provides a way for libraries of all types across a state, region, system or community to show what happens in a single day in their libraries. How many books are checked out? How many people receive help finding a job? Doing their taxes? Doing their homework? This initiative provides an easy means to collect statistics, photos and stories that will enable library advocates to prove the value of their libraries to decision-makers and increase public awareness.

Today was "Snapshot Day" for Indiana. I, alas, did not participate. Don't ask my why, just know I am feeling the guilt, and this is probably a matter best addressed within the privacy of the confessional. Thankfully, many of my colleagues took advantage of this wonderful opportunity. I can't wait to see the results.

If you are a librarian and a slacker like me, don't wait a year for your chance at a snapshot day. You may not have a job by then, just sayin'. I actually do a "snapshot day" every year in May, but I refer to it as an Annual Report. I am sure this is one of the main reasons I still have a job, as do the other 12 school librarians in my school district.

Here is what you do (here come Brunner's Bullet Points, Yay!!!):

• Take a couple of hours this month, and consider it professional development. Put it on your calendar, and don't miss that appointment! Take it as a paid sick day if you have too. It is preventative care for America people!
• Visit the the page "Library Snapshot Primer" for details on how to create your own initiative.
• House your snapshot day on a social networking site, or network several sites together for your library gallery. Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Wikispaces, Ning, Blogger. The possibilities are endless.
• Can't access any of these in the workplace? Use this as your agenda for getting those sites open for teachers and administrators so you can save your district money, and help the environment, by producing a paperless annual report. Heck, make them quarterly for that matter and you won't have to freak out at the end of the year pulling stuff together!
• Once your site is up and ready, even if it is not perfect, send the link out to the parent email list, or if that is not an option, get your teachers and community friends to start going viral with it. Retweet, Repost, Forward, and Share! The best part about publishing in this way is that, you don't have to stress about the content being static. You publish it, find that annoying typo, edit, republish. It is all good.

I will post mine sometime this month and would love to see what everyone else is doing! Send me a link so I can be a carrier of your viral initiative!

--- Sneaky Link ---

Did you see it? Sneaky Link is a new viral initiative for me to sneak in a link to online content I enjoy and will pass on to my patrons and colleagues. Look for a link to a blog that I stumbled upon, and laughed, and spent way too much time on. Good stuff!