Students at the University of Colorado Boulder are teaming up to promote libraries and create awareness about their importance throughout the Boulder community.

“We’ve all talked about how we’ve had fond memories of the library, whether that was at our public libraries or our school libraries, and we just want to ensure people in the next generations have library resources so they can get the same types of experiences and memories that we had growing up in libraries,” CU Boulder junior Leah Szabo said.

Szabo is part of a team called Buffs for Books that has developed a public relations campaign for EveryLibrary, a nonprofit that engages in politics and policy to advocate for public libraries and school libraries at local, state and federal levels. The Buffs for Books team is part of a national competition where teams of students from 60 universities are creating a public relations campaign promoting EveryLibrary.

Winners receive a cash prize that goes back to their university’s chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America to fund events and other group activities.

“We’re promoting (EveryLibrary’s) mission because we believe in a time like this when library grant funding is being frozen, it’s more important now than ever to support and advocate for these libraries,” CU Boulder senior Maggie O’Brien said.CU Boulder senior Sarah Trunsky said Buffs for Books is looking to build a bigger network of library advocates for EveryLibrary. The team has been visiting classrooms, talking to students and partnering with Boulder businesses. The businesses create a space for Buffs for Books to advocate for EveryLibrary to its customers. In exchange for customers filling out the team’s survey, they get connected to EveryLibrary’s newsletter and receive a discount at the restaurant or business.

“It’s really cool to have tangible evidence that people really care about this cause and it goes to show that EveryLibrary is such a valuable organization,” Trunsky said.

For example, Crunch Fitness in Boulder is giving away a free one-year gym membership to one lucky winner. To enter, people can follow the Buffs for Books Instagram and fill out their survey via Google Form. On Sunday evening at Ripple Frozen Yogurt, customers can receive 20% off their order when they fill out the survey. For more information on their events or to fill out their form, visit instagram.com/buffsforbooks.

Through their campaign, Buffs for Books is specifically targeting current and future teachers. The team conducted surveys at the Boulder Valley School District and CU Boulder where 76% of respondents said libraries are imperative to a student’s academic success. According to the American Library Association, more than 8,800 public schools nationwide do not have an on-campus library. Of the schools that do, 17,000 of them don’t have a full-time or part-time state-certified school librarian on staff.

“Current and future educators will be more successful if they have library resources available to them, and EveryLibrary helps teachers build more informed, literate students,” Szabo said. “When you take the pledge to be a library advocate you are going to be helping something that goes beyond yourself.”

CU Boulder has two groups competing in the nationwide public relations competition to build a campaign for EveryLibrary.

The second team is Ralphie’s Readers, which has held events reading to Boulder kids and handing out wrapped banned books. The team also posts articles about book bans and censorship and aims to reach mothers and their kids.

“I hope we can reach as many people in Boulder as possible and get the word out and spread some awareness,” senior Gabriella Olson said.

For more information on Ralphie’s Readers events and to fill out their form, visit instagram.com/ralphiesreaders/.

Anyone can become a library advocate by filling out either group’s Google Form available at links in their Instagram bio.

“We want to know when current and future educators — or even anyone who wants to be a library advocate — when they take a pledge to support libraries they’re actively supporting freedom of expression, they’re fighting censorship and they’re promoting the access to information which is more important now than ever before,” Szabo said.