Thanks to Linda, Nick, and Sarah for their answers to the second set of election questions. this is such a great way to get to know more about our candidates. For our third set of questions we have two from me and two from a Past President.

Sarah Debraski
YALSA President-Elect

How will you make time for this larger volunteer role in your life? How will you balance your board chair responsibilities with your personal and professional responsibilities?

Everyone has different skills they bring to a board and an organization. What do you believe is your particular strength that you will bring to leading the YALSA Board?

What do you think the biggest challenge facing our organization is?

From Past President Judy Nelson:

What do you see as the long term change that will occur in your life as a result of serving on the YALSA Board?
How will this experience help you move your goals forward?

YA Lit Symposium Housing Now Open! Make your reservations at the Millennium Maxwell House in Nashville, Tenn. at a special rate for the inaugural Young Adult Literature Symposium today—register by phone, fax, or online using the information available on the YA Lit Symposium Web site. The symposium is Nov. 7-9 with a theme of “How We Read Now.” Registration for the symposium will open May 1.

Spectrum Applications Due! On March 1, Spectrum Scholar applications are due. Learn more about the Spectrum Scholars program at the Spectrum Web site.

Starting in fiscal year 2008, YALSA will support one Spectrum Scholar, as part of YALSA Unity: A Diversity Initiative, courtesy a grant from ALA for initiatives that support the ALA Ahead to 2010 Strategic Plan.

Committee Volunteer Forms—Get ‘Em In! YALSA President-elect Sarah Cornish Debraski is hard at work appointing YALSA’s process committees, juries and task forces. Submit your committee volunteer form by March 1 to be considered.

To learn more about YALSA committees, juries, and task forces, check out the committee descriptions or reread a few helpful blog posts about this very topic.

Teen Tech Week is nearly here! We’ve got little more than a week before Teen Tech Week, March 2-8. Beth Saxton lists some book display ideas, and make sure to check the Teen Tech Week Wiki and the Teen Tech Week Web site for more ideas.

Also, if you haven’t already, encourage your teens to enter the Teen Tech Week Promotional Song contest!

(And send your teens to the Teen Tech Week Web site March 2-8 to vote on next year’s theme and give us their thoughts on technology and libraries).

Early Bird Registration for Annual! Early bird registration for ALA Annual ends on March 7—that’s two weeks and one day from today. You’ll save significantly on advanced and onsite registration fees by registering now, and we want you to join YALSA in Anaheim, June 26-July 2!

We’re offering two preconferences, Got Tweens? Serving Younger Teens and Tweens and Turn Teens on to Reading through Booktalks, plus a few special events: Edwards Award Luncheon, the Printz Awards Reception, and the Young Adult Authors Coffee Klatch. And, of course, we’ve got great programming at conference: advocacy, gaming, YALSA 101, young adult literature and more.

Find more details about registration and housing at the ALA Annual Web site or the YALSA @ ALA Annual Conference Wiki.

ALA Elections Coming Up. Voting starts online on March 17. See the YALSA slate, read up on YALSA presidential candidates, and check out election news on the YALSA blog. To learn more about the election process and candidates for ALA Council and ALA President, visit the ALA Elections Web site.

YALSA at PLA! Coming to Minneapolis? So is YALSA! YALSA will be exhibiting in Booth 1621, you can buy YALSA t-shirts and publications in the PLA Store, and a number of your fellow YALSA members will be presenting programs and preconferences. We plan to have a happy hour for members as well—location and place TBD! Stay tuned to the blog for more details (and if you’re thinking of registering, PLA’s Advanced Registration and Housing close on Feb. 29).

In today’s New York Times there is an article titled, Sorry, Boys This is Our Domain, that focuses on the ways teen girls are using technology to create and collaborate and even to make names for themselves in the greater world.

Teen girls highlighted in the article include:

• Martina Butler who was the first teen podcaster to receive national sponsorship for her podcast, EmoGirlTalk.
• Lauren Renner and Sarada Cleary who started the web site A Girls World.

It’s exciting to read about what girls are doing as content creators and collaborators. Obviously, technology provides expanded opportunities for teens of both sexes to make their ideas, art, music, and so on available to a world-wide audience.

At first when reading the article I thought, Wow, this is a great way to help teen girls succeed in the area of empowerment as outlined in the developmental assets by the Search Institute. Then I thought, I wonder how this translates into the technology-based programs and services libraries provide all teens (boys and girls)? Are libraries giving teens the kinds of opportunities to create and collaborate that they want and need? Then I wondered, what would it look like if the library did provide these programs that were very specifically focused on content creation and collaboration? Would it mean simply making sure all teens have the ability to create and collaborate on library computers? Does it mean the library should definitely host blogs, wikis, and such that teens can add to? Does a library give all teens the chance to teach younger children about online content creation and collaboration?

Probably all of the above, but I also wondered, what does this article mean to libraries in terms of the gender preferences outlined? Do we need to think about different programs and services for the different genders? Should programs about creating online video – which is said to be a format/activity with more boy participation than girl participation – be geared to boys more than girls? Should blogging workshops – which are said to be of more interest to girls than boys – be geared specifically to girls?

The answers of course can only really come from talking with teens. Check out the article to find out what research seems to show about gender preference related to content creation and collaboration. Then see what your teens have to say about things. If they say the article is all wrong, or if they say it’s all right, maybe you can have them create content by writing their thoughts in letters to The New York Times.

Teen Tech Week is coming soon and every library can get in on the celebration or enhance their planned activities with some Teen Tech Week themed displays.

Looking for books? Check out the list at the Teen Tech Week Wiki

Think beyond books! You can highlight the more high tech parts of your collection with a display of audiobooks, cds, and dvds.

Ask staff if they have any out-dated technology at home that might make for a fun display. How many teens have seen an eight-track or even an actual record player?

Instead of a physical display use a site like Slide.com to make a slide show of book covers or program photos for the library website or MySpace.

Pick one popular teen subject and display all types of materials together, for example some Beyonce bios, cds, and the Dreamgirls DVD.

Create a Teen Picks shelf in your library and encourage your TAB members or other teens to keep it stocked with all different types of materials.

Explore photos of Teen Tech Week Displays from last year’s celebration. See what other librarians have done and get creative!

–posted on behalf of Beth Saxton, Teen Tech Week committee member

As Billboard.com reports, Grammy-winning and chart-topping producer Timbaland has struck a deal with Verizon Wireless to produce the first ever straight-to-cell phone album.

The tracks, which will be leaked to V Cast subscribers once a month through 2008, will feature Timbaland collaborate with different artists while touring the country in a mobile recording studio. Each will include a full-length MP3 and ringtone.

Cell phones may represent the new frontier for major record labels, who have been struggling to find a viable medium to sell their wares to new generations. And whereas artists used to brag about having a number one album, now they brag about having the top ringtone. This is in part due to the more stringent locks placed on cell phones, which record companies hope can keep users from redistributing songs.

Perhaps most striking is Timbaland’s statement, “every place don’t get a CD [but] everybody has a mobile phone.” Mobile phones have long overtaken CD players among teens, and as the surging popularity of music and camera-equipped phones are demonstrating a convergence in media and mobile communication that offers exciting possibilities for how media is delivered to teens (which Japan is already seeing with novels).

Now imagine your library sent teens snippets of novels through Twitter to whet their appetite for more, or produced and shared multimedia content with services like Qik, PixPulse, Orb, or MBIT TV. Hopefully, like with lots of other digital content, mobile media won’t leave libraries in the dust. Until then, try sum cell xprments 2 c if u cn get ur word out.

Welcome again to the election forum on the YALSA blog. Thanks Linda, Sarah, and Nick for your great answers to the first questions. Now, on to today’s questions:

Spreading the word about YALSA and library service to teens is an important task for the Division President. What training or mentoring have you done to spread the YA word to other professionals? Who has mentored or made a difference in your professional life?

YALSA is lucky to have members with a very wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, including brand new members and long-term members. What services do you feel YALSA provides that are particularly valuable for new members? Long-term members? What are your ideas for reaching those groups of members?

And finally, just for fun, what are some of your favorite YA books, authors and/or movies?

Sarah Debraski
YALSA President-Elect

Recently, on the Buzz Out Loud podcast there were discussions about the use of LOL when the person using that in an email, text message, etc. is actually LOI (laughing on the inside.) Interestingly enough, the discussion went on over several days and several episodes of the podcast. As the hosts, and those who sent feedback to the show, talked about the way these acronyms are used, it became clear that acronyms of this kind do not get used without putting text into context and doing some critical thinking about the message being sent.

The podcast discussions were all humorous and not totally serious, but, they still got me thinking. So many times adults that don’t use texting or IM complain about the demise of the English language because people are using acronyms instead of full words and phrases. (I have blogged about this before.) But, listening to the Buzz Out Loud discussions it was clear that using these acronyms is not something that happens in a vacuum. And, at times, when the right acronym is not available a new one has to be created. Is it a bad thing if teens actually create new language to fill in when what’s actually available just doesn’t meet their needs?

When adding LOL, LOI, COL, or others to a communication, the writer has to think about which one to use. Is it really that I’m LOL or am I really LOI? Maybe I’m COL? Of course it’s probably pretty rare that one is ROTFL when using that acronym, but the point about what the writer is thinking is pretty clearly made when that set of letters is selected.

What if you talked with teens about how they make choices about the acronyms they use when creating a message to a friend or family member? Do they think about their choices? Do they make different choices based on who they are communicating with? Have they ever created their own acronyms in order to meet a specific need, emotion, or thought? What would you find out about the thought process involved in using acornyms in text, chat, and so on?

BTW, COL stands for chuckling out loud. I’d never heard that one before and the person that sent it in on Buzz Out Loud, mentioned that she and her friends made it up to meet their specific purposes. Anything wrong with that?

Still looking for programming ideas for Teen Tech Week? Have teens try their hand at the “CD cover meme,” which has been working its way through the web over the last week:

1. Go to the Wikipedia Random Articles page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random). The title of the article is the name of your band.

2. Next, check out the random list on the online Quotations Page Quotations page (http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3). The last four words of the very last quotation is the title of your album.

3. Finally, visit Flickr’s “Interesting Photos From The Last 7 Days” page (http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/). The third image will be your cover art.

Teens can then use Photoshop, open source solutions such as Gimp, or free web apps such as Picnik or Fauxto to put it all together (my results are to the right). This is a great chance for teens to remix a few different corners of the web into inspiration to make music of their own.

Registration for housing for the Young Adult Literature Symposium opened today. Rooms at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel will cost $119 per night. For information on how to reserve your room, check out the Young Adult Literature Symposium website

Registration for the symposium itself will open on May 1, 2008.

Rates

Early Bird Special
Registration is only $195 for YALSA members and Tennessee Library Association/Tennessee Association of School Librarians members. Only registrations postmarked or made online by September 1, 2008, will be eligible for this special rate.

$195 YALSA Personal Member
$195 TLA/TASL Personal Member
$245 ALA Personal Member

$300 Nonmembers
$50 Students (enrolled full-time in a library program)

Optional preconference: $75

Advanced Registration
Advanced registration runs September 2 – October 3, 2008.

$245 YALSA Personal Member
$245 TLA/TASL Personal Member

$295 ALA Personal Member
$350 Nonmember
$50 Student (enrolled full-time in a library program)

Optional preconference: $75

Onsite Registration Fees
Onsite fees apply to registrations made on or after October 4, 2008.

$270 YALSA Personal Member

$270 TLA/TASL Personal Member
$320 ALA Personal Member
$375 Nonmember
$75 Student Member

Optional preconference: $75

Get Connected to Teen Tech Week

Registration may be closed, but Teen Tech Week plans are just starting to heat up!

First, make sure you’ve ordered your official Teen Tech Week products by Monday, Feb. 18 to have them arrive by Teen Tech Week using standard shipping. (And hurry—products are going fast; we’ve already sold out of Tune In bookmarks and the TTW 2008 Set).

If you’re stumped for ideas, find inspiration at the Teen Tech Week Wiki, from the resources page at the Teen Tech Week Web site, or by picking up a copy of Get Connected: Tech Programs for Teens, by RoseMary Honnold for YALSA (Neal-Schuman, 2007)!

Make sure to bookmark www.ala.org/teentechweek ! During Teen Tech Week, encourage your teens to vote for next year’s theme as well as take part in the SmartGirl.org Be Smart Wired Survey on teen’s online habits. Both will be open for voting starting March 2.

Get the Jump on Annual
Early bird registration ends in just three weeks, so it’s a good time to finalize your summer plans and join YALSA in Anaheim, June 26-July 2!

We’re offering two preconferences—Got Tweens? Serving Younger Teens and Tweens and Turn Teens on to Reading through Booktalks—as well as special events—Edwards Award Luncheon, the Printz Awards Reception, and the Young Adult Authors Coffee Klatch.

Find more details about registration and housing at the ALA Annual Web site or the YALSA @ ALA Annual Conference Wiki.

Get Smart with YALSA’s E-courses
Looking to expand your knowledge? Got a few extra professional development dollars to spend? Then look no further than YALSA’s roster of Summer E-courses. Three six week classes, taught by YALSA experts, will take place from July 7 to August 18. Classes include:

• Making the Match: Finding the Right Book for the Right Teen at the Right Time

• Reaching Teens with Gaming

• Tech Tools for Teen Leadership

Registration opens May 18. To learn more, visit YALSA’s Summer Online Courses page.

Get Ready for the First Young Adult Literature Symposium
YALSA’s first biennial Young Adult Literature Symposium, How We Read Now, will be Nov. 7-9 in Nashville! Details on registration and more will be posted later, but you can find out the program slate now (and see the papers to be presented) by visiting the Young Adult Literature Symposium Web site.

Get Out the Vote
The YALSA elections will begin soon! Balloting begins March 17. Check out the YALSA Slate of Candidates!

Check back to the YALSA Blog every Thursday for a rundown of news and updates from the YALSA Office. Send your questions and comments to Stevie Kuenn, YALSA Communications Specialist, at skuenn@ala.org.