David McMenemy. Photo: SLIC © Alan Richardson Pix-AR.co.ukDavid McMenemy. Photo: SLIC © Alan Richardson Pix-AR.co.uk

A new piece of work to support advocacy work in libraries has put ethics and values at the heart of those conversations. Senior Lecturer in Information Studies at University of Glasgow, Dr David McMenemy, created the REVEAL toolkit and here he explains how to make best use of it, and why it is needed.

HOW we advocate for our library services is a something that shouldn’t be taken for granted. We need to think about why we are doing it and what we hope to achieve by it.

As budgets continue to be cut, so the need for effective advocacy increases – if libraries and information services are fighting for a share of a dwindling pot, then the advocacy on behalf of those services becomes ever more valuable. So how can we ensure that our advocacy is effective and why should we be thinking about the ethical values when we are talking about services?

Reinforcing Ethics and Values for Effective Advocacy for Libraries (REVEAL) is David’s response to those questions. He says that while we may not always consider it an ethics-driven enterprise, advocacy has always been based around the values associated to the activity. He says: “Advocacy is making a case for something, and when done from the point of view of the tools of rhetoric, it is fundamentally a values-based activity. One of the three key elements of rhetoric, pathos, is about tapping into the emotional aspects of an argument to influence the receiver of an argument. This is what we try to do with advocacy every day, and is usually based on arguments related to personal development, supporting individuals and communities on their journeys through life by ensuring access to information. All of that is based on core ethics and values.”

The REVEAL project has been funded by CILIP Scotland’s Research Fund and delivers a range of tools and practical advice, as David explains: “I conceived the REVEAL project because I felt there was a sense that advocacy for libraries needed to be embedded more in the ethics and values of librarianship, and that do so we needed to make that content available to as many people as possible.

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Discover the full resources in the REVEAL Project - Just one of the ways CILIP can support you in building your knowledge and career.

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“I submitted the bid to the CILIPS Research Fund in the autumn of 2022 and was delighted it was funded. I’ve been looking to do work like this for a few years, and the CILIPS Fund seemed like the ideal opportunity to produce the content.

“The outputs consist of a series of materials, including ten videos, a comprehensive literature review, as well as infographics, discussing key aspects of advocacy and professional ethics in librarianship. We discuss advocacy from the point of view of the tools of rhetoric, as well as theories of ethics, leading thinkers in library ethics, and key ethical issues in librarianship, such as privacy, freedom of expression. All materials are made available free on a Creative Commons license, so I’m hoping it will be engaged with by as many people as possible to support their work.”

For David, the idea is that advocacy should not be an afterthought – but rather a core part of how information professionals go about their job. There are occasions when it takes a less formal appearance, but to be truly effective advocates need to consider their advocacy and the results they are hoping to achieve. Part of that advocacy is about having a clearer understanding of why libraries exist and what purpose they serve.

In many ways, libraries can be seen as victims of their own success – books and reading are universally positive, but they barely scratch the surface of why a library exists. David says: “Libraries are essential bulwarks for key rights that citizens should expect to be supported by a liberal democracy. Equity of access to information, freedom of expression, privacy, all are crucial elements of library ethics and values. These are, at their core, some of the fundamental issues we advocate for libraries on.

“These are all very deep issues that the profession needs to engage with more, both in terms of how often we do so collectively, but also with how many people in the profession are given the opportunity. For instance, most of the workforce do so if they are lucky enough to attend library school, but there’s no guarantee of this. More importantly those who have not followed a formal qualification in librarianship may not ever get the chance. The materials for REVEAL provide this opportunity for anyone and everyone.”

David says that there should be nuance in the arguments being made for libraries, adding: “I see some attempts at advocacy on these vital issues that are profoundly unserious, and that lack of seriousness and deep engagement with very important human rights makes us look trivial, in my view.”

He goes on to point out that: “I saw an article earlier this year where the message was ‘Libraries don’t censor!’ Well, it might sound good as a soundbite, but it’s also not correct. Sometimes libraries do censor, as part of their selection criteria, or to satisfy conventional mores.

“Asheim’s seminal article from 1953 (discussed in the REVEAL literature review) highlighted that this is a very important area to be mindful of, the cross-over from selector to censor. It’s very complex, and it is done no justice at all by soundbites that might curry favour on social media for five minutes, but actually devalue that very important societal role of the librarians as selectors for their communities. As I said earlier, it looks unserious to the outsider, when in actuality it is profoundly serious.”

David adds that “understanding the core ethical arguments for the human rights we claim to support seems to me to be a fundamental jumping off point for our advocacy,” before welcoming CILIP’s recent guidance, Managing Safe and Inclusive Public Library Services.

“CILIP’s Safe and Inclusive... is a very important and timely publication, and the work for REVEAL complements it well, I think. The REVEAL materials provide some of the deeper elements of the arguments that support the recommendations in Safe and Inclusive..., and also include some useful techniques that can be added to the techniques suggested in the publication.

“For instance, REVEAL includes discussion of a tool called the Scale of Resistance, proposed by Ramage, Bean, and Johnson (2007) which gives you a framework for advance thinking about objections to potentially controversial initiatives that a library might decide to implement. In the REVEAL materials I show it utilised in advocacy for Drag Queen Story Hours, and being able to consider in advance the objections you might encounter, and how to think about how these might be engaged with.

“I’d hope both REVEAL and Safe and Inclusive Places become important tools for empowering the profession in advocacy and dealing with controversy.”

It’s important to remember that values and ethics do not sit in isolation – they may not always be front of mind, but they underpin the practice of the information professions, as well as the theory. CILIP’s ethical framework, for example, is a central tenet of the work it does to support members and the wider profession.

David believes that this connection to professional ethics and values is an important aspect of the profession, and as such should be part of discussions around advocacy. The tools developed for the REVEAL project help to give people the confidence to talk about that connection and the role of values and ethics in relation to their own advocacy work. All the resources, including a series of online videos and printable infographics, are designed to be accessible and easy to follow.

“The materials produced for REVEAL can be used by anyone who wishes to advocate for libraries, so I’m hoping library campaigners, as well as the workforce, might be able to take them on and use them,” says David. “The videos are designed to be utilised in any way that is useful; they can be followed through from the first to last, or just dipped into thematically. Similarly, the literature review is organised in distinct sections and does not need to be read through in full if the reader simply wishes to study up on one element.”

That approach of dipping in and out of the guidance, allows for users to take a flexible approach and to build their knowledge and understanding at a pace that suits them. The key aim is for people to feel comfortable and confident about how they can frame their advocacy through the prism of ethics and professional values.

David says that there are some quick wins, which will help develop that understanding of how advocacy and values are connected, adding: “I’d encourage readers to read the section or watch the video on advocacy and rhetoric, as this provides tools such as the Scale of Resistance I mentioned earlier. The final video of the series discusses this in terms of applying to libraries, so a quick fix might be videos one and 10.

“The infographics could be very useful to print out and place in libraries, as they include Ranganathan’s five laws of library science, as well as Gorman’s enduring values. As posters for the workplace, or even inside the public part of library buildings, these could be very easy to implement quick wins that could provide daily reinforcements of library values.”

There is a section entitled “How to do value driven advocacy”, and David says: “That is the final part of the materials that brings together all of the materials to form some suggestions for how to go about it. In terms of easy wins, a lot is based on how we pre-plan things, from policies on stock development, to advocacy programmes. The techniques discussed in the outputs give some advice and guidance on how to think about ethics and values-based advocacy in advance.

“The techniques discussed also provide useful information on how to counter different types of arguments you might receive in objection to materials or activities, so that content might be a useful thing for the workforce to dip into for advice.”

You can find out more about CILIP’s Managing Safe and Inclusive Public Library Spaces: A practical guide, which is free to access. All the resources created for the REVEAL Project are also freely available, thanks to funding from CILIPS. You can access all the material here.

References

Asheim, L. (1953) Not Censorship, But Selection. Wilson Library Bulletin. 28 (September), pp.63-67. Available here

Ramage, J. D., Bean, J. C., & Johnson, J. (2007). Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings. 7th edition. Pearson Longman.

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