april06b.indd


charting our future 
Julie Todaro 

The power of persuasion 
Grassroots advocacy in the academic library 

After years of working in the local, state, and national legislative arena, for me, 
the term advocacy has become—admittedly 
incorrectly—synonymous with primarily ex­
ternal advocacy for legislative initiatives. It’s 
hard work, it takes a wide variety of talents, 
great stamina, and—obviously—it is an on­
going and often uphill, frustrating road. It’s 
no wonder that burnout among legislative 
advocates is high and that the term advoca­
cy—no matter the meaning—is not always 
first on everyone’s to do list. 

With this in mind, before the last Texas 
legislative session and before Texas initia­
tives at the federal level, I explored ways 
to bring new supporters to the legislative 
table as well as ways that might rejuvenate 
the experts who had faithfully come to the 
Texas process for many years. Given our 
24/7, major ongoing commitment to proac­
tive legislative contact, rather than our annual 
moderate activity with extensive work every 
two years during the session, I chose to focus 
on training advocates with skills that would 
serve those involved throughout the legisla­
tive year, between legislative sessions as well 
as back in the workplace. I decided to move 
away from the term advocacy for recruiting 
and training legislative and instead focus on 
infl uence and persuasion. 

My rationale was, and still is, no matter 
who we are trying to influence, we have so 
little time with those we are trying to convince 
and—as in other professions—people in 
legislative arenas and in our own institutions 
really know very little about what we do. 
Realistically speaking, sitting down with a leg­
islator, a legislative aide or, for our initiative 
at hand, a department chair, dean, or even 

classroom faculty for 15 minutes at a time (no 
matter the educational content we bring) is a 
matter of getting attention, creating a teach­
able moment, indicating value and worth of 
what we do, making an impact, connecting 
with a promised outcome or a memorable, 
unique or targeted fact, and seeking follow­
up opportunities. 

In addition, learning how to infl uence 
and persuade through longer moments, such 
as work on curriculum design projects with 
classroom faculty, in working with students 
daily at the reference desk, through working 
with student leaders for institutional projects 
and partnerships and in typical bibliographic 
and educational support activities, are all 
avenues for integrating critical support for 
library value, worth, and initiatives. 

Training library advocates 
In searching for training content, I found Rob­
ert Cialdini’s and his Cialdini’s Infl uence: Sci­
ence & Practice.1 His practical and scholarly 
work in the psychology of infl uence, offers 
extraordinary opportunities for learning and 
applying influence and persuasion principles 
for professionals in a wide variety of work 
environments. I ordered a video presenta­
tion, obtained permission to use the video in 
training our Texas legislative network, and, 
for several years, have been convinced of his 
unique message for convincing and persuad­
ing others to “our side” for both our “teach­
able moments” and for our more extensive 
work relationships and opportunities. 

Julie Todaro is dean of librar y ser vices at Austin 
Community College, e-mail: jtodaro@austincc.edu 
© 2006 Julie Todaro 

228C&RL News April 2006

mailto:jtodaro@austincc.edu


How does this relate to our future, Camila 
Alire’s presidency, and ACRL goals overall? 
Alire’s vision for her presidency is an exciting, 
multifaceted view that includes a commitment 
to expanding opportunities to develop front­
line librarians.2 In her own words, under her 
“Charting our future: Advocacy to advance 
academic libraries” umbrella, “No matter 
what positions we hold in our libraries, our 
responsibilities seem to be ever­changing as 
we face increasing challenges, such as the 
reality of reduced funding, the demand for 
more electronic resources and services, the 
expectation to lead scholarly communica­
tion discussion and action, the certainty of 
retirements en masse, and the challenge 
to diversify our institutions and academic 
libraries’ workforce, among others.” During 
her presidency, she has been focusing on 
one of ACRL’s strategic areas of focus—ad­
vocacy—but specifically grassroots advocacy 
that includes training frontline librarians and 
other library workers “to strengthen their 
influence on their local campuses in campus 
awareness and activity related to public policy 
affecting higher education.”3 

In discussions with frontline librarians and 
middle managers about ACRL goals, however, 
the reality is that librarians—although they are 
overall supportive of future directions—do not 
have extensive training in infl uencing, persua­
sion, or even advocacy, much less the science 
of influence or persuasion. Although learning 
the science and art doesn’t free up time and 
doesn’t automatically create venues for com­
municating new techniques or knowledge, 
learning how to influence and persuade: 

• helps to identify institutional issues and 
avenues where persuasion and infl uence 
might work best; 

• provides tools to identify individuals 
with whom techniques of persuasion and 
influence might work best; 

• outlines content focusing on value and 
worth to design and enhance the academic 
library message; 

• illustrates the value and application of 
passion and commitment in using techniques 
of influence and persuasion; 

• provides skills sets to increase basic 
skills and instill confidence in both new and 
expert advocates; 

• identifies the elements of empowerment 
and leadership for advocating for the library 
at the campus level; 

• builds on the existing strength, compe­
tency, and credibility of frontline librarians; 
and 

• offers content to be used in designing 
a systematic advocacy action plan to inform 
faculty, students, and (where appropriate) 
academic administrators and institutional 
partners about academic library issues. 

Learn how at the ACRL advocacy 
workshop 
Alire’s vision, realized through the design 
of a workshop and toolkit to be premiered 
in New Orleans, is designed to address the 
levels of advocacy, desire, and determina­
tion by assisting librarians to identify roles 
they might play in choosing to get involved 
with advocacy efforts through the applica­
tion of infl uence and persuasion techniques; 
identifying librarians who are best suited to 
the process as well as certain audiences in 
the process; teaching “the choir” new ways 
to connect; and illustrating how to integrate 
influence and persuasion into work respon­
sibilities and goals for the institution. 

Members are strongly encouraged to at­
tend the 2006 ALA program “The Power of 
Personal Persuasion: Advocating for the Aca­
demic Library Agenda from the Frontlines.” I 
think you will find the content both practical 
and inspirational, and you will go home with 
extensive content for advancing your institu­
tion “from the frontlines.” 

Notes 
1. Robert Cialdini, “Influence at work: The 

psychology of persuasion,” Influence at Work, 
N.d. 17 January 2006, www.infl uenceatwork. 
com/index.htm. 

2. Camila A. Alire, “Charting our future: 
Advocating to advance academic libraries: 
The 2005–06 ACRL President’s focus,” C&RL 

(continued on page 268) 

April 2006  229 C&RL News 

www.infl


finally,
 director
 of
 fiscal
 and
 administrative

services.


Wayne Gossage, library
 director,
 manage­
ment
 consultant,
 entrepreneur,
 and
 execu­
tive
 recruiter
 in
 the
 New
 York
 metropolitan

area
 from
 1950
 to
 2003,
 has
 died.
 Gossage

worked
 in
 public
 libraries
 in
 East
 Orange,

New
 Jersey,
 and
 Levittown,
 New
 York,
 be­
fore
serving
as
director
of
the
Warner
Library

in
 Tarrytown
 NY
 (1955–1963);
 as
 assistant

director
of
Teachers
College
Library,
Colum­
bia
 University
 (1963–67);
 and
 as
 director
 of

Bank
 Street
 College
 of
 Education
 Library

(1967–80).
He
served
on
several
alumni
and

professional
organizations,
notably
as
an
ac­
tive
member
of
the
New
York
Library
Associ­
ation
and
ALA;
trustee
of
the
Harvard
Library

NYC
 (1978–2000);
 and
 Board
 advisor,
 Pratt

Institute
 School
 of
 Information
 and
 Library

Sciences
(1988–2001).
Beginning
in
1983,
he

was
the
first
executive
search
consultant
for

directors
 of
 public
 library
 systems
 and
 for

university
deans
of
libraries.
In
1980,
Wayne

Gossage
and
Muriel
Regan
formed
Gossage

Regan
Associates
(now
Gossage
Sager
Asso­
ciates,
Inc.)
for
library
management
consult­
ing,
which
also
was
the
first
library
personnel

firm
specializing
in
temporary
services.


John P. McGowan, 79,
 retired
 university
 li­
brarian
at
Northwestern
University,
has
died.

McGowan
was
known
for
leading
Northwest­
ern’s
 library
 from
 a
 traditional
 repository
 of


Advertisers
AARP 220 
ACM 265 
Annual Reviews 256 
ARL 263, cover 3 
Chemical Abstracts Service cover 2 
Choice 259 
EBSCO cover 4 
Frugal Librarian 254 
Haworth 212 
Library Technology Alliance 255 
Project Muse 227 
RBMS 215 
Thompson Gale 211 

books
to
a
library
of
automation
and
informa­
tion
technology.
In
1951,
McGowan
became

a
librarian
in
New
York
University’s
College

of
 Engineering,
 and
 later
 joined
 Northwest­
ern
 in
 1956
 as
 librarian
 of
 its
 Technological

Institute.
In
1959
he
left
Northwestern
to
be­
come
library
director
at
the
Franklin
Institute

in
Philadelphia;
he
returned
to
Northwestern

in
 1966
 as
 associate
 university
 librarian.
 He

was
later
promoted
to
university
librarian
in

1971,
serving
in
that
position
until
he
retired

in
1992.
McGowan
was
the
1989
ACRL
Aca­
demic/Research
Librarian
of
the
Year.


(“The
power
of
persuasion,”
cont.
from
page


229)


News
 66,
 no.
 8
 (2005),
 26
 February
 2006,


www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews


/ b a c k i s s u e s 2 0 0 5 / s e p t e m b e r 0 5 
 

/advocatingtoadvance.htm.



3.
 Camila
 Alire,
 “President’s
 Page:
 Mes­
sage
 from
 Camila,”
 ACRL,
 2005.
 Ameri­
can
 Library
 Association.
 1
 March
 2006,

www.ala.org/ala/acrl/presidentspage

/presidentspageacrl.htm.


(“Reviews”
continued
from
page
261)


tion,
date,
or
event.
An
additional
means
of

access
is
through
the
teacher
resource
pages,

where
curricular
material
is
provided
for
fi
ve

well­designed
thematic
lesson
plans
that
are

designed
to
work
with
the
digital
collection

while
delving
further
into
such
issues
as
im­
migration,
 child
 labor,
 and
 domestic
 work.

The
homepage
features
a
changing
display
of

images
and
diary
entries
and
related
resources

that
include
several
of
Harvard’s
digitization

partners,
such
as
the
Library
of
Congress.


Women
 Working,
 1800­1930,
 is
 an
 ex­
tensive,
 subject­based
 collection
 of
 unique

and
 rare
 items
 that
 is
 well­designed,
 easily

accessible,
 and
 thoroughly
 fascinating.
 In

its
 depth,
 breadth,
 and
 design,
 which
 is
 as

informative
as
it
is
educational,
it
is
a
model

for
other
digital
collections.—Linda
Frederik­
sen,
 Washington
 State
 University
 Vancouver,

frederik@vancouver.wsu.edu


268C&RL News April 2006

mailto:frederik@vancouver.wsu.edu
www.ala.org/ala/acrl/presidentspage
www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crlnews