{"id":50,"date":"2019-05-06T23:19:47","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T23:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/?p=50"},"modified":"2019-05-06T23:23:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T23:23:31","slug":"book-burning-saves-a-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/?p=50","title":{"rendered":"Book Burning Saves a Library"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Book Burning Saves a Library<\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
\n

Anti -tax groups seem to oppose most everything government does. The public supports much of what government does in providing services. Often good government loses out because people do not vote. Low turnout benefits conservative positions as they tend to vote.<\/p>\n

Twice turned down by low turnout out elections, the Troy, Michigan City Council called for one last vote before the Library would close. What happened next\u00a0 would change the two previous voting outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue to form, Troy Citizens United\u00a0\u2014\u00a0represented at public debates<\/a>\u00a0by soon-to-be-mayor Janice Daniels \u2014\u00a0opposed the proposal on anti-tax grounds. But this time they were joined in their opposition by a committee called Safeguarding American Families, which said it was rooting for the vote to lose so it could throw a book-\u201cparty once the library closed.<\/p>\n

Yeah that\u2019s right. A book-burning party.<\/p>\n

Safeguarding American Families printed up signs that said: \u201cVote to close Troy library Aug. 2nd, Book burning party Aug 5th.\u201d They planted them on lawns. When the signs got torn up, they replaced them with new ones.\u00a0They took out an ad in the\u00a0Troy Times<\/em>\u00a0for a clown and an ice cream vendor, to serve as additional entertainment.\u00a0They started a\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0and a\u00a0Twitter account<\/a>(\u201cThere are 200,000 reasons to close the Troy Library. They\u2019re called books. #BookBurningParty\u201d).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The previously low voter turnout surged when voters\u00a0 realized the consequences of closing their library.\u00a0 They were incensed by the proposed Book Burning Party \u2013 which was like something out of\u00a0Ray Bradbury;s Fahrenheit 451 .\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing was a hoax. Safeguarding American Families was an invention of the Leo Burnett advertising agency, which had been hired to create a blitz media campaign that would encourage voters to turn out and approve the library-funding proposal. Just before the election, Safeguarding American Families\u00a0revealed its true message<\/a>: \u201cA vote against the library is like a vote to burn books.\u201d\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was the key to a successful campaign. First was getting people to pay attention. The second was to reframe the issue from one of taxes to providing a public benefit \u2013 namely the value of books and a public library.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeo Burnett says its goal was to change the conversation from taxes to libraries. Sure enough, come August 2, voter turnout hit 38 percent and the library proposal passed with 58 percent of the ballot. The ad agency, which pulled off the whole stunt on a donated budget of about $3,500, recently won a 2012 Gold Effie award \u2014 given to exceptional marketing campaigns \u2014 for its efforts. Somewhere, Ray Bradbury is smiling.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read the full story here on\u00a0CITYLAB<\/a>
\nThe Book-Burning Campaign That Saved a Public Library<\/a>
\nby ERIC JAFFE JUN 29, 2012<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Burning Saves a Library Anti -tax groups seem to oppose most everything government does. The public supports much of what government does in providing services. Often good government loses out because people do not vote. Low turnout benefits conservative …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,3,5,4],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-burning","tag-fahrenheit-451","tag-opposing-anti-tax-campaigns","tag-re-framing-campaign-messages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thirdplanetbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}