As I mentioned in my last post on life as YALSA President-Elect, I’ve been talking with selection committee chairs about how these committees work (and don’t work.)  On Monday I had the last of these scheduled phone conversations and want to say thank you to all of the chairs who talked with me. Every conversation was helpful and I now have a much better sense of life as a selection committee chair. Thanks to all of the chairs for taking the time (sometimes quite a bit of it) to talk with me.

Now that that process is complete, the appointments to selection committees can begin - sort of.  There are a few of things that have to be in considered and in place before I can complete my part of the appointment process. These are:

• Any committee member who is eligible to serve another term has to fill out a volunteer form to let me, and YALSA, know that he or she wants to re-up the appointment. There are a number of instances for which this might be required. For example, if someone is serving a first year on a selection committee that has a policy that a member’s first year is a trial year. If the member wants to continue on the committee for the number of years allowed by the committee’s policies, that member has to fill out a form.  In other words it’s not automatic that a member gets reappointed after a trial year. The only way for me to know the reappointment is desired is through the submission of a volunteer form.
• Not everyone can be on everything. It’s really great the number of YALSA members who want to help out in a variety of ways and on a variety of committees. However, there are rules about the number of commitments one member can have. While that rule is that one member can serve on three committees at a time, there are some caveats within that rule. One is that selection committees are an amazing amount of work and it’s not possible to be on more than one of them at a time.  Similarly, when someone is elected or appointed to an award committee - Printz, Edwards, Caldecott, Newbery, etc. - it’s not possible to also serve on a selection committee.  This means that anyone already on a selection committee that is elected or appointed to something similar does have to leave the current committee.  I and Letitia Smith (the YALSA Administrative Assistant) are keeping track of these things as we work on the appointment process.
• Anyone who is interested in selection committee work does need to submit a volunteer form.  Just like I can’t know if someone wants to be reappointed to a committee, I can’t know if a YALSA member is interested in a selection committee unless the volunteer form is submitted.  We’ve set September 30 as the deadline for volunteer form submissions. Don’t forget to get yours in.

All the info. you need for getting involved in a YALSA committee is available on the YALSA wiki and website. You’ll find:

• An overview of how to get involved in YALSA
• The job description for committee members
• Descriptions of YALSA committees and task forces
• YALSA committee volunteer form

Last week in a phone conversation with Beth Yoke, YALSA Executive Director, and Stephanie Iser, Chair of the Teen Tech Week Committee, I mentioned that since I’ve been working on the committee appointments I’ve learned an amazing amount about how committees work.  (Even though I’ve been on both process and selection committees during my past 12 years as a YALSA member.) I hope the information provided here helps you understand the selection committee appointment process a bit more.  If you have any questions or comments be sure to let me know. You can contact me via email at lbraun@leonline.com or on Twitter at lbraun2000.