I think advocacy for the profession is very important as more and more organisations are having to cut budgets and libraries seem to be a big part of these cuts. I know that a lot of school libraries are going and seen as not needed so how long will it be before this is filtered up and college libraries start to disappear?
Our college library is split into lots of locations (LRCs, Learning Resource Centres) although we don't always feel as Library staff that these are for the purpose we would choose. Increasingly these seem to be more computer rooms than actual study centres full of different learning resources. We have to speak up to make sure that we have all the resources available to help our students, not just doing something because it seems the easier option or what one department wants rather than the actual student needs. Some days I have sat in LRCs feeling like I am more of a babysitter making sure students behave rather than utilising professional library skills to help students. Increasingly we are there more to support IT skills than help a student to find information on a topic. Advocacy helps promote what we can do so that we are asked for help and do become usful again. If we don't promote ourselves and our service we are taken for granted and not utilised in the ways we can help.
I haven't written anything for any publications to do with Libraries although I have found it particularly useful and enjoyable writing this blog to keep track of my thoughts and share them with others so it might be something I'll pursue in the future. When I worked in customer services at a call centre I was a co-editor of a magazine we had there and I really enjoyed writing articles for it.
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