Advocacy can feel uncomfortable for many librarians. It can sound like selling, self-promotion, or pushing ideas onto people with more power than you. For some, it even feels risky.

Advocacy Without the Ick takes a different approach. It reframes advocacy as an act of clarity, alignment, and kindness — not performance or persuasion. It’s about explaining the value of your work in ways others understand, protecting the services and people you care about, and ensuring good work doesn’t stay invisible, without becoming someone you’re not.

This first session sets the foundation for the full 12-session programme. It explores what advocacy really is (and what it isn’t), why librarians often struggle with it, and why “good work speaking for itself” is no longer enough. You’ll look at how power and hierarchy shape advocacy, the hidden risks of staying silent, and the cost of downplaying your work.

Rather than teaching pushy sales techniques, this session helps you translate your work into clear, human language; make invisible impact visible; and advocate without apology, over-explaining, or minimising. You’ll practise talking about impact as if you were speaking to a trusted colleague, not pitching to a panel.

This is advocacy as service, not persuasion. Selling as serving. Clarity as kindness.

Who it’s for This session is for library and information professionals who care deeply about their work, feel uneasy about “selling”, and are doing valuable work that feels unseen or taken for granted — often without formal authority. You don’t need a management title or advocacy experience, just a desire to make your work clearer and more visible.

Join a Live Empower Session