  {"id":211209,"date":"2025-02-27T18:31:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T23:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/?p=211209"},"modified":"2025-02-27T18:33:37","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T23:33:37","slug":"montclair-scm-student-team-launches-everylibrary-everyvoice-campaign-for-national-prssa-bateman-competition-to-support-the-everylibrary-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/2025\/02\/27\/montclair-scm-student-team-launches-everylibrary-everyvoice-campaign-for-national-prssa-bateman-competition-to-support-the-everylibrary-organization\/","title":{"rendered":"Montclair SCM Student Team Launches &#8220;EveryLibrary, EveryVoice&#8221; Campaign for National PRSSA Bateman Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A team of Montclair School of Communication and Media students is competing in the prestigious Bateman Case Study Competition, hosted by the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA). This annual, national contest challenges student teams to research, plan, implement, and evaluate a PR campaign for an actual client.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This year\u2019s client is EveryLibrary, a nonprofit, pro-library organization that works to ensure access to libraries without the threat of censorship or illicit political interference. EveryLibrary supports public, school, and college libraries by helping them secure funding at the ballot box. Since its founding in 2012, the organization has fought against book bans in over 100 local communities and helped restore books to the shelves in dozens of towns and schools.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Through primary and secondary research within the Montclair community, the SCM team has gathered insights to guide its campaign strategy. Their findings revealed that many students were unaware of the challenges libraries face, including limited funding, and how these factors impact the availability of resources. Additionally, the research showed that while students valued libraries as study spaces and research hubs, they didn\u2019t always recognize the broader role libraries play in community engagement and providing free access to information. With these insights, the team developed the EveryLibrary, EveryVoice campaign\u2014a movement designed to raise awareness, amplify advocacy, and mobilize support for libraries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SCM students Noelia Aguirre, Libby Brennan, Mary Lage, Hallie Lippey and Grace Velazquez are developing the campaign alongside faculty advisor Professor Erin Weinberg Some of the highlights in of the campaign include:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Public Libraries: An Overlooked Resource for Cultural Communities?<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A roundtable discussion featuring Telemundo47, exploring the vital role libraries play in serving diverse cultural communities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>PSA on <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnewyork.com\/contact-us\/\"><b>NBC 4 New York \/ WNBC<\/b><\/a><b>: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A public service announcement produced by the team and aired on NBC New York, highlighting the importance of libraries and their role in the community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/streamstak.com\/hawkplus\/\"><b>Hawk+<\/b><\/a><b> Series:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A set of interactive interviews, one with Professor Laura Nicosia, who teaches a class at the University on book banning and censorship and the other with Claudio Alejo Assistant Director First-Generation Initiatives, Student Development and Campus Life designed to inform students about the challenges libraries face and how this could affect them. Hawk+ is the University\u2019s streaming network, the first of its kind in the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Banned Book Wicked Movie Night:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In collaboration with Residence Life, the team hosted a themed movie night highlighting the importance of banned books and censorship awareness in Freeman Hall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Surveys and Library Ally Pledge:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Over 500 students participated in surveys, providing insights into their views on libraries. Many also signed the Library Ally Pledge, committing to support and advocate for libraries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Launch and Valentine&#8217;s Day Tabling Events: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The team engaged with students across campus through two major tabling events. The launch event introduced the campaign, while the Valentine&#8217;s Day tabling featured Montclair\u2019s mascot, Rocky the Red Hawk, offering photo opportunities and encouraging students to pledge their support for libraries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">EveryLibrary, EveryVoice<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> campaign comes to a close this week, the team reflects on the incredible journey that has brought them to this moment. From research and planning to implementation and engagement, they have worked tirelessly to create a meaningful impact on campus and beyond. With hope that their efforts will be recognized among the finalists, they take pride in the awareness and advocacy they have built for libraries. Regardless of the competition outcome, the movement they started will continue, and their commitment to championing libraries will remain strong for years to come.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Story by School of Communication and Media student <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/mary-lage-979980243\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mary Lage<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team of Montclair School of Communication and Media students is competing in the prestigious Bateman Case Study Competition, hosted by the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA). This annual, national contest challenges student teams to research, plan, implement, and evaluate a PR campaign for an actual client. This year\u2019s client is EveryLibrary, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":211211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-communication-and-media-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211209"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211212,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211209\/revisions\/211212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/college-of-communication-and-media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}