YALSA’s Partnerships Advocating for Teens (PAT) Committee will be hosting “It Takes Two: School and Public Libraries, Partnerships That Can Work” at the 2009 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, on Sunday, July 12, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. In addition to featuring two speakers who have considerable knowledge and expertise on the subject, the program will consist of several presenters of “best practices” in collaborative programming or partnership for school and public libraries.

The presenters include:

• Gail Bush from National-Louis University will be briefly discussing the history of school and library partnerships.
• Tasha Squires, author of the new book Library Partnerships: Making Connections Between School and Public Libraries will be talking about the nuts and bolts of how to create a robust school and public library relationship.
• Robin Willard from Chicago Public Library will be talking about the unique relationship that CPL has with the Chicago Public Schools.
• Anna Koval from Petaluma City Schools will be talking about collaboration from the schools perspective.
• Elisa McClain from the ALSC/AASL/YALSA Jt School Public Library Cooperation Committee will be presenting updated resources on the ALA website and how librarians can add resources to the site.
• Patricia Tirona, who will be sharing her program, Reading Challenge, which is a reading incentive program hosted by a shared facility public and school library as well as the community.
• Brijin Boddy, with her program, the Brown Bag Book Club, where she visits the local high schools during lunch for a book club discussion.
• Maureen Hartman, who will be sharing, History Day Hullabaloo, which is a partnership between the public library, the historical society, and the local university to help students with their History Day project.
• Kelly Czarnecki, with Game On!, where she brings both board and video games to the school library for an afterschool gaming program.
• Latasha Baker, with her Youth Discussion Group, where she purchases books for a book discussion at the local schools, bringing fun choices and activities to bring the books alive.

So come by and check out the great opportunities there are for partnering with the local public and school libraries in your community.