Ursula Meyer Advocacy Training 2026-6-10 “Bringing Joy Into Problem-Solving:Boosting Library Advoc..
Knowing your strengths, knowing your team’s strengths, and fostering healthy, authentic relationships are all key elements used by successful advocates to solve problems and reach their advocacy goals. Integral to those problem-solving efforts is a commitment to listening rather than reacting quickly; collaborating effectively with partners to understand problems and seek solutions that produce positive results for everyone involved; and simply bringing joy to the problem-solving process.
Library advocate Dorothy Stoltz, whose 40-year career includes work as an author, trainer, consultant, and librarian, returns to the California Library Association Ursula Meyer Library Advocacy Training project June 10, 2026 from 10 – 11:30 am PT for this free, highly interactive online (via Zoom) workshop that explores how we can effectively use collaborative, empathetic problem-solving techniques to boost the reach of our efforts as advocates on behalf of libraries and the communities we serve. CLA Ursula Meyer Library Advocacy Training Project Manager Paul Signorelli will serve as co-facilitator.
“This training presents five tips on how to advocate more effectively to cultivate a larger sphere of concern – including collaborating with community groups as well as individuals – by stopping personalizing conflicts, dealing with the issues at hand, and seeing others in a more positive perspective,” Stoltz said in outlining the goals for the session.
Topics to be covered include:
1. Spotting and enhancing personal and team advocacy strengths
2. Handling disappointments and setbacks without losing momentum
3. Using humor and lightness to keep efforts moving forward
4. Building lasting, authentic relationships with stakeholders and community members
5. Crafting and telling a compelling story that move hearts and minds
Goal:
Participants will further develop their problem-solving and collaboration skills in advocacy on behalf of libraries and the communities they serve.
Objectives:
Participants will be able to:
Identify at least one personal strength and one team strength and how to leverage them to improve advocacy, Cite at least three actions successful advocates take to build and maintain healthy relationships with stakeholders, Demonstrate an ability to use the foundations of joy to cope with advocacy challenges, Choose three resources that they will use to further their advocacy skills
Presenters:
Dorothy Stoltz is a librarian, author, trainer, and consultant. The majority of Dorothy’s 40-year career was at Carroll County (MD) Public Library, where she retired as Director for Community Engagement. She is serving on the boards of the ALA Learning Roundtable and DVA and More (Drug and Violence Awareness). Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Activate ab intus (to activate within), she founded Waldo Publishers, LLC in 2021 to help others activate the ability to develop their inner best and bring it to all that they do.
Paul Signorelli, a San Francisco-based writer/trainer-facilitator/presenter/consultant who frequently collaborates with Dorothy Stoltz on training-teaching-learning endeavors, is project manager for the CLA Ursula Meyer Library Advocacy Training project; served as co-host of the San Jose State University iSchool podcast “Information Gone Wild” and appears regularly on Coleman’s T is for Training podcast for those involved in training-teaching-learning in and through libraries; and frequently designs and leads onsite and online workshops for library advocates. His publications include “Change the World Using Social Media” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and (as co-author) “Workplace Learning & Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers” (ALA Editions, 2011).
About the Ursula Meyer Advocacy Fund Training Series:
This program is part of an ongoing series of monthly online sessions that began in September 2021 and is offered through the Ursula Meyer Advocacy Fund Training Series; sessions are generally held online on the second Wednesday of each month, beginning at 10 am PT. The series honors the memory of Ursula Meyer, 1977-78 CLA President, California Library Hall of Fame inductee, longtime director of the Stockton-San Joaquin Public Library, and fierce advocate for library services and intellectual freedom. The Ursula Meyer Fund was established to provide for the training of librarians in all stages of their careers, and library supporters, in political advocacy and political action, in honor of Ursula’s belief that librarians need effective political skills to advocate for library support at all levels of government. Archived recordings of previous sessions are available on the California Library Association YouTube channel at / @californialibraryassociati2705 .
To support the series through a donation, please visit the CLA website at https://www.cla-net.org/donations/fun....