advocacy

Gale and Cheeriodicals Bring Cheer and Smiles to Hospitalized Children in Metro Detroit

| By Tara Blair | As a longtime Gale employee, I wasn’t surprised when I caught word of the company’s plans to assemble hundreds of gift boxes for the children at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor. The boxes were to be filled with crafts, activity books, puzzles, and games during a team building … Read more

Gale Gives Back to No Kid Hungry

| By Samantha Boudouris | According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 13 million children in the United States live in “food-insecure” homes.[i] This means food is scarce and families lack access to enough food to maintain an active, healthy life. Share Our Strength, a nonprofit organization, has set out to change this. … Read more

Gale Employees Donate Necessities to Freedom House Detroit

| By Tara Blair, Digital Marketing Coordinator, Gale | In 1983, horrified by reports of political torture and murder in El Salvador, a group of Detroiters came together to help refugees who fled that country and were arriving in the city in droves due to its proximity to Canada—just like that, Freedom House was born. … Read more

Gale’s VP of Marketing & Communications Shares Why Libraries are Awesome

Gale’s Vice President of Marketing & Communications, Harmony Faust, has always been a leading advocate for libraries, opening the door anytime opportunity knocks. She channels her passion into daily efforts, serving as a member of the steering committee for the Corporate Committee for Library Investment and on the Board of Directors for EveryLibrary, the only … Read more

Gale’s Holiday Book Sale Raises Funds for Reading Is Fundamental

| By Jennifer Stock | This year, I became the new project editor for the Something About the Author series. Featuring emerging and established authors/illustrators in the fields of children’s and young adult literature, this series includes images of the entrants, as well as numerous book covers and interior illustrations. Each of the books that have images … Read more

Empowering Newsmakers

| By Brian Risse, Vice President, Public Library, Wholesale, and Large Print Sales | As I think about the impact that libraries have on the community, it’s hard not to reflect on the 2018 federal budget that proposed to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the advocacy efforts needed to defend … Read more

Gale and Book Aid International: A Shared Mission for Empowerment

| By Jessica Edwards |

Although I spend most of my time working for the Gale International Marketing team, I’m also a Publisher Ambassador for the charity Book Aid International. After touring the Cengage warehouse last year and learning about operational processes, including the scrapping of books, I was inspired to research ways of extending the lives of books marked for pulping. I consequently came across Book Aid International, a long-established charity who ship new books from UK publishers out to sub-Saharan Africa, and was immediately impressed with the value and scale of their work.

The charity not only accepts book donations, but establishes librarian training programmes and funds refurbishments at partner libraries in sub-Saharan Africa and the occupied Palestinian territories. Some of these libraries are in communities with a very limited access to books such as refugee camps, prisons, and slums, others are in hospitals or universities where resources are extremely dated. Book Aid International works with some of the largest UK publishers, and all the books shipped abroad are new. In 2016, they sent over a million books. They also work with local publishers to source books in local languages.

It can be hard to appreciate quite how desperate the need is, but a few particularly powerful stories go some way towards demonstrating. The Menelik II Referral Hospital in Ethiopia is a hospital with no internet connection, and therefore no online resources. Thus, the library is vital for medical staff to access the up-to-date information they require. Nearly all the books in the hospital library are provided by Book Aid International. Samuel’s story in the video below is also a powerful indication of how the work of Book Aid International helps individuals pull themselves out of poverty. The video also outlines the charity’s many achievements over the last year.

Read moreGale and Book Aid International: A Shared Mission for Empowerment

Nashville Public Library Named 2017 Library of the Year

Tennessee’s Nashville Public Library (NPL) has been named the 2017 Library of the Year by Library Journal magazine and Gale, a Cengage company. The Library of the Year is a prestigious honor awarded to a library that demonstrates profound service to community, creativity, leadership, and innovation in developing community programs. Nashville Public Library stands out … Read more

Why Advocacy Matters for Public Libraries

Posted on May 31, 2016

By Rhonda Sewell 

Long gone is the notion of public libraries lingering in the shadows and doing little to advocate their value to their communities and promote their many offerings, programs, and activities. Advocacy and unapologetic promotion of our transformative systems is now a major priority. Such ideas hold a sacred place in our discussions surrounding public service, strategic goals, funding, construction, marketing, and digital implementation for libraries. Even the Twittersphere of endless hashtags has transitioned from reading sentiments to action items and rallying statements such as #LibrariesMatter, #LibrariesTransform, and #SaveOurLibraries.

Because doing more with less is a reality for public libraries, especially as competition for funding sources and customer demands increases, advocacy matters now more than ever.  “Advocacy, the process of acting on behalf of the public library to increase public funds and ensure that it has the resources needed to be up to date, is critical to the success of libraries,” states the Public Library Association (PLA)[i].

Read moreWhy Advocacy Matters for Public Libraries

Do You Keep Your Library’s Business Resources Hidden?

Posted on May 5, 2016

You may remember last year when we published a blog about Samantha Cole’s editorial in Fast Company magazine. Since it’s National Small Business Week, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make sure you’re not missing out on an opportunity to leverage the gift of free advertising. Keep reading; it’s not too late.

Cole’s article, “Who Needs Business School? The Hidden Startup Resources at your Local Library,” perfectly tells the value story of public libraries and specifically, how you support local entrepreneurs and foster economic growth. Do you ever read or hear something and think to yourself, “I couldn’t have said it better myself!”? This is one of those moments. What Cole has explained about libraries—and how she has explained it—is evidence-based and right on point.

Read moreDo You Keep Your Library’s Business Resources Hidden?