(This has been copied directly from the Blackboard site for convenience and ease of referral.)

Presentation: Overview of an Issue - 20%

Work with a partner to develop an overall advocacy approach to an issue and present it to the class in an online format. Presentations are due in Week 6.

You and your team will later critique another team's presentation from the point of view of fellow supporters of the cause.

Each team member will also prepare a short paper with a detailed advocacy plan for one of the target groups. See the assignment - see Advocacy Plan Short Paper (below).

Partners: Partners will be assigned in the second week of the class.

Issues: Choose as a team from the list below, or you may propose one of your own for my approval. Decide on the issue by the end of Week 3 and inform me.

• A new reference service
• A new outreach program
• A new electronic initiative
• A partnership or collaboration
• A new policy

Format: Create a slide presentation and audio narrative not to exceed 12 minutes to deliver.

It should answer:

• What is the issue?
• Why is it important and to whom?
• Who are the stakeholder groups and what is their connection to the issue? Rank them.
• Who are the advocates?
• What is the general advocacy approach?

See the page on Slide Presentations for details on software and methods for creating this presentation.

Upload: Upload the presentation to your Content Area, and post a message to the discussion board forum for Presentations with your issue as the subject line. In your message give such details as the title of the presentation, your names, a brief introduction, and a link to the file in the Content Area. See the page on Uploading Files for instructions on uploading and linking.

Due Dates:

More information about the assignement from Wendy Newman's e-mail January 29, 2007:

Presentation assignment.

As noted last week, the document on presentation partners is now available. Get in touch right away, and if you do not receive a reply, let me know immediately. I have heard from a couple of you about choice of topics. Let me expand on this a bit here, for those who may be struggling.

(1) Make sure you have a genuine and specific “issue” – something that different people could see quite differently. Don’t choose something that is so patently self-evident that it would be completely churlish to disagree. You’ll just insult your decision-makers.

(2) Make sure your issue has an absolute minimum of three target groups; more is better.

(3) Remember that almost all advocacy takes place in an environment of competing priorities, mostly seen and experienced by decision-makers as good things competing with other good things. Be sure to exude respect for that reality, or your decision-makers will write you off as just not getting it. You are usually, in effect, asking decision-makers to move resources from one good thing to another.

(4) Don’t propose something for which you have absolutely no idea of where the resources might come from, or for which you have conveniently made the “bottom line” someone else’s problem. See #3 above for consequences of that mistake.

(5) If you are really struggling with these points, you may wish to focus your initial assignment on a policy change, as opposed to a new service.

(6) Read library association journals for ideas and issues if you are still stuck for a topic.

(7) Be sure you choose an issue for which you can do some research on your decision-makers. For example, their mission statement would be woefully insufficient information. Assumptions are dangerous; stereotypes even more. Base your strategy on what your decision-makers value, and not on your own perspective; this is the point of the assignment.

(8) Few things are more detrimental to advocacy than perceived self-interest of advocates. Don’t be the advocate for an issue or service for which you would appear to be one of the beneficiaries. It is better to put the case into the hands of advocates who would not run afoul of that perception.

(9) Finally, use the blank on the bottom half of page 41 of the Library Advocacy Now! Workbook to try out your idea. If you have difficulty summarizing your issue with this brevity, chances are you need to re-think your objectives or choose another topic.