Greetings, The Library of Michigan would like to announce the second all-state library advocacy campaign known as Library Snapshot Day to take place May 22-26, 2017 with the hashtag #MiLibSnap. You can use it in all your social media venues. You may remember #MiLibSnap from last year. This is a national ALA initiative of library advocacy based on data. This year we have a slight twist. It's still about advocacy and it's still about data but we encourage you to take library numbers and compare them to figures of other activities in your community. Does your community plant a lot of flowers or trees? Drink (or make) a lot of beer or wine? Attend a lot of sporting events? Gather numbers for how many and compare them to library data such as door counts or program attendance or circulation that show your library is engaged with your community. Need library numbers? The numbers you provide in your state aid report are a great place to start. If you're looking for a broader, state-wide library number, feel free to contact Library Data Coordinator Joe Hamlin at hamlinj2@michigan.gov. Need community numbers? Try State of Michigan websites, your local chamber of commerce, or local research agencies such as colleges, universities or extension offices. Get creative! Here are a couple of examples, feel free to borrow them: [NBA #MiLibSnap 2017 NFL Michiganders checked out 1.5 times more materials than the total number of NBA, NFL & NHL ticket sales in North America.] [#MiLibSnap 2017 In Ingham County last year, enough people attended library programs to more than fill the 75K seat Spartan Stadium.] Consider using action verbs in your posts such as: Serve, Answer, Engage, Link, Entertain, Teach, and Create. As you ready your comparisons, think about the distinct value that you provide better than anyone else in your community. Consider how your library is: * An excellent return on investment * Supports strong economic development and impact * Provides great employment support * Delivers provable early literacy development * Serves your community with ongoing lifelong support for formal education and homework help * Provides affordable access to community resources * Serves the whole community equitably * Supports cultural vitality * Is a recognized and valued leisure activity for a majority of Michiganders There are lots of free tools to help you with the graphics, from simple to sophisticated. Check out the list below for creating great visuals. Word cloud tools: * Wordle<http://www.wordle.net/> * Tagul<https://tagul.com/> * Word It Out<https://worditout.com/> * PowerPoint add-in Infographic tools: * Piktochart<http://piktochart.com/> * Venngage<https://venngage.com/> * Easel.ly<http://www.easel.ly/> Data visualization tools: * Gapminder<http://www.gapminder.org/> * Tableau<https://public.tableau.com/s/> * Google Public Data<http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory> * Infogr.am<https://infogr.am/app/#/create> Sonya Schryer Norris Library of Michigan 702 W. Kalamazoo St. PO Box 30009 Lansing, MI 48909 517-373-4457 http://www.michigan.gov/libraryofmichigan http://www.mel.org<http://www.mel.org/> http://www.michlibrary.org<http://www.michlibrary.org/> [cid:image001.png@01D169A3.73327F50] Take time this month to check out the Essential Instructional Practices in Early Literacy<http://www.gomaisa.org/sites/default/files/K-3%20Literacy%20Essentials%203.2016.pdf#overlay-context=general-education-leadership-network>