ALA Launches Text-Message Advocacy Service

This year, the American Library Association launched Mobile Commons, a new advocacy tool that will allow library supporters to receive text message alerts from the ALA’s Office of Government Relations. The opt-in service will allow the ALA to communicate advocacy messages in a quick and effective fashion using an innovative texting and calling feature.

Advocacy subscribers will have the option to call legislators to discuss particular issues toll-free through Mobile Commons. The text messages will provide subscribers with talking points on issues before automatically transferring the advocates to the offices of their legislators.
Advocates who wish to sign up for the service can text the word “library” to 877877 or sign up online at districtdispatch.org/textalerts.

Mobile Commons was created to deliver more timely communication with advocates and to generate a higher volume of calls into Congress. The Office of Government Relations was alerted to the service after the micro-blogging site Tumblr used it to generate 88,000 calls into the House of Representatives in 14 hours as part of their opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Example: “This timely program will make it much easier for library advocates to stay informed and get involved in the issues facing our nation’s libraries.”

Service subscribers can expect to receive 2-3 texts per month on average.

from http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/ala-launches-text-message-advocacy-service