{"id":32159,"date":"2013-07-23T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-23T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=32159"},"modified":"2013-07-15T22:10:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T02:10:14","slug":"being-an-advocate-for-the-profession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=32159","title":{"rendered":"Being an Advocate for the Profession"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Lisa Huntsha, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Sweden<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Being an Advocate for the Profession<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"lisahuntsha\"<\/a>Almost every time I meet a new person and they ask what I do for a living, I am met with the same confused face when I answer: \u201cI\u2019m an archivist.\u201d Then there is a brief moment of awkward silence when I realize that they are struggling to understand what, exactly, that means. This has been happening to me so frequently that I\u2019ve nearly perfected a condensed explanation of what exactly it is that I do and why it is important. But this got me thinking: we should really take every opportunity we get to be an advocate for our profession.<\/p>\n

Develop your own \u201celevator speech.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t just say<\/i> what you do, but explain<\/i> what you do, and why it is important. Spend some time thinking about this and maybe even write it out and practice so that you can confidently articulate why your position and profession matters.<\/p>\n

Join or start an advocacy group in your area<\/b><\/p>\n

Gather other allied professionals who can help develop a strong voice for the profession. Perhaps there is already a local group in your area or student chapter of ALA\/SAA on your campus that you can get involved with. Think about ways to raise the visibility of library professionals in your community.<\/p>\n

Take every opportunity to promote the value of libraries\/archives\/museums<\/b><\/p>\n

Of course, a great opportunity to talk about your work and why it matters is when people ask you what you do for a living, but look for other opportunities in daily conversations to raise awareness for your profession. Go ahead \u2013 talk up your profession the next time you are at a loud concert. It doesn\u2019t hurt to bust a few stereotypes here and there. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Lisa Huntsha, Head Editor,\u00a0INALJ Sweden Being an Advocate for the Profession Almost every time I meet a new person and they ask what I do for a living, I am met with the same confused face when I answer: \u201cI\u2019m an archivist.\u201d Then there is a brief moment of awkward silence when I realize…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":28057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[4970,233,3592,4972,4335,4971,4334],"class_list":["post-32159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-advocating-for-the-profession","tag-articles-2","tag-blog","tag-elevator-speecha","tag-inalj-sweden","tag-librarian-advocacy","tag-lisa-huntsha"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/lisahuntsha.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-8mH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}