Mid-Coast Perspective

As we’re all aware, the budget submitted by Ted Strickland to the state legislature included provisions halving state support for public libraries. The Ohio Library Council has created a breakdown of the impact of this proposed budget cut. As you can see, no library in the state was spared and many library systems stand to see their budgets slashed to the point where they will be forced to shutter their doors.

This site aims to help provide library supporters with the tools necessary to take direct action in defense of our libraries. Our objective is ambitious, but our public libraries will not go quietly into the night, and they will not shutter without a fight. If they’re determined to cut our libraries, lets make sure that decision costs them as much as it costs us.

I’ve outlined objectives below, and I will be making resources available on this site to aid you in achieving these objectives.

1) We need to make sure that every politician in the state of Ohio knows how we feel on this issue. At the local level we need to contact our city council members and mayors and encourage them to adopt resolutions in defense of our libraries, to send letters/emails/calls to the state legislators and the governor’s office, and to join us in Columbus showing support for our libraries. At the state levels we need to encourage our state legislators to vote against any proposed budget that slashes funding by more than the previously projected 19%. At the federal level, we must tell our representatives and senators that we need their support in contacting the statehouse and encourage them to find alternatives to wholesale budget slashing. We also must remind them of the value that public libraries bring to their districts and the country as a whole and request ear-marked federal funding to bridge our libraries.

2) We need to make sure that every person in Ohio knows what the governor has proposed and what it will mean for our community. This means that we need a concerted effort to make sure our opinions are expressed on the opinion pages and editorial pages of every newspaper in the state and at least once per week until funding is restored. You will find a list of newspapers on this site as well as sample letters that I have written.

In addition to writing newspaper opinions, contact local newspaper writers, bloggers, radio shows, and television shows and ask if they’ll do a story, cover a demonstration, and seek state comments.

3) We need to make sure that our elected officials understand the implications of shuttering our libraries. To do this, I encourage you to contact the campaign contributors of Ted Strickland and your representatives and senators and tell them what is at stake and how you feel about them supporting politicians who think shuttering libraries is an acceptable option.

4) Finally, lets make sure our voices are not only heard but resonate going forward. We can make a difference, and as a group, we can remind Ohio politicians that we elected them to serve us, and we will not tolerate being underserved by them.

More to come,

~Johnathon

Comment

Since we’re running a campaign without a budget, our media objective should focus entirely on earned media. Earned media is when your campaign receives newspaper, radio, television, blog, social network, etc coverage without having to pay money for it. Earned media is the cheapest way to get our message out to the broadest group possible.

To earn media, we must Identify Media Outlets. I’ve begun that here with a list of Ohio Newspapers. A list of local television and radio stations is being compiled and will be out soon.

Your job is to find contacts at these news outlets. I intentionally left my contacts off because it is less productive for us all to shoot emails to the same list, than to find your own contacts and building your own contact list. This way, you can develop relationships and your odds of success will increase.

Once you’ve identified media outlets and you’ve developed contacts at these outlets, you must work these relationships. This begins by writing press releases to let them know what is going on. A sample press release is available here from Save Ohio Libraries. Use these to announce situation changes, gatherings, and other big stories. Additionally, make yourself or find a library representative available to participate in interviews, photo opportunities, etc.

Finally, make sure to use them to push your agenda. This is where you write letters to the editor, opinion articles, and suggest interesting facts, interviews, or occurrences that may provide writers good kindling for a story.

I hope this helps, and if you have any questions about earned media, email me at johnathon@midcoastperspective.com

Comment

The late senator Paul Wellstone was fond of telling his campaign the Alice In Wonderland quote that “if you don’t know where you are going, almost any road will take you there.”

Right now, there are thousands of people across the state who share our concern about library funding. But the difference between standing in solidarity and actually having an impact depends upon effective organization. Having 10,000 people wandering down roads alone will not achieve our goal, we must consolidate our efforts to maximize our impact.

The objective here is to make sure that we’re all on the same page, that our message does not deviate, and that we stand as one in our cause. One Tweet does not a world save. Individually we’re weak, united we’re strong.

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