Please sign national petition direct to White House seeking librarians+ posted from parent perspective

[Lisa Layera Brunkan]

Hi all-

WhiteHouse.gov asked this week what should be part of a 21st C. education-- this is a softball that has been lobbed to every single librarian in the country (if we can get even half of the 80,000 of you to respond this issue could make it to the table).

  I've posted a twitter petition (whitehouse.gov is accepting tweets officially) asking that any revision to education law includes librarians (with training in technology integration), 1:1 and broadband for all. All 'signatures' (retweets) go directly to WhiteHouse.gov (it is set up to ask them to post a response and how many hours it has been. . . .) 

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions why I included what I included- it was very much an intentional decision to make this about equity, access, and a 'new' paradigm to represent 21st C. Library Information and Technology centers that would facilitate filling virtual portfolios for all students.

It's imperative we have a good 'showing'. How would I measure that? High volume of signatures from all 50 states (there is a map that you can click on towards the right to see what we have so far- sparse!).

Those of you in Indiana and Michigan facing the brutal cuts- I would encourage you to use this as an easy way to raise awareness that doesn't alienate your local school boards- it's a great way to get a news story that will stick. Email me if you want to talk about how to connect with media/how to frame.

What to do:

1. Sign up for twitter if you haven't already (takes 2 minutes)

2. Go here to access petition: http://act.ly/1rb

3. Retweet

4. Pass virally around your individual state to make sure your state generates lots of action

5. Get a parent to let the press know that this is happening and we're all wondering if the White House might answer- it is publicly presented that way at the petition- Can social media directly link people to White House? Can this usher in a whole new paradigm of Democratic engagement?

You likely all know that every medium is running tons of stories on social media so the timing is perfect.

6. Go out and get people signed up at Twitter for them to 'sign' (have a handy list of 5 entities to 'follow' so they can see the intellectual power of twitter)

6. Please email me if you'd be willing to be a state captain for national effort to see that librarians aren't left out of revision.

This is a bit of casting the net here- as a Mom who cares about all children having librarians I'm basically asking what you guys are willing to do to see that happens. I believe it must be about concrete, positive action- talking about what kids need, what the school library of the future must look like and above all ensure no kid is left sitting on the sidelines to languish in this new era where classical literacy still very much counts as does mastery of new technology skills.

What do you think?

Lisa in Spokane

[e-mail]

p.s. I need to fully disclose that I was ready to completely step away from this advocacy because it's quite frankly felt like putting a finger in the dike. However, after presenting this Wednesday at a summit for How to Transform your Library into a 21st C. Library Information and Technology Ctr. alongside Mike Eisenberg and Joyce Valenza I just couldn't in good conscience step away without one last stand. Here's the summit resources:

http://librarycalltoaction.wikispaces.com/