Title: Shakespeare in Bits: Macbeth

Cost:  $14.99; free lite version available which includes two scenes; district pricing available

Platforms:  iOS, Browser-based

When I learned about Shakespeare in Bits at the fall 2012 YALSA Lit Symposium in St. Louis, it seemed like a great fit for our  English Language Learners (ELLs), who are assigned Macbeth in 10th grade. Animation, audio and text combine to offer the reader a multimodal approach to reading and understanding Macbeth. After playing with the lite version, I wanted to see more.
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In the South Shore of Massachusetts, a team of young adult librarians meet monthly to discuss ideas, experiences, and future professional plans. Collaboration has become increasingly important in the world of public library services as our role in the community begins to change through incorporation of our expert technology skills, through community partnerships and outreach, and an emphasis on the library as a community space. Although we all serve towns in the South Shore of Massachusetts, the range of demographics, such as ethnicities, affluence, and local cultures within these towns, contributes to a dynamic team of librarians. These other Teen Librarians have guided me towards innovative programming and the creation and relevant use of Teen Spaces.

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You’ve seen the slate of candidates, but want to hear more from the nominees for YALSA President and the YALSA Board? We’ll be talking with those individuals this week and next here on the YALSAblog.

Candidates, who will be presented in alphabetical order, were asked to contain their responses to a twitter-ish 140 characters, but I know their enthusiasm comes through even given the enforced brevity.

Today, YALSA Board Candidate Matthew Moffett.

Your current position and institution

Assistant Branch Manager, Fairfax County Public Libraries, Fairfax County, Va. (more…)

At the YALSA Board’s Midwinter Meetings, the Board discussed the YA Literature Symposium and voted to make some changes, on a trial basis. After the next Symposium (Fall 2014), it will become an annual event. Then, after three consecutive years, it will be re-evaluated. In addition to being held yearly, the Symposium will expand its offerings beyond a strict focus on literature to include programming and other teen-focused topics.

There were several considerations for changing the Symposium to an annual event. The Symposium tends to draw people who are not able to attend ALA Annual and Midwinter. Many YA professionals have the opportunity only to attend one conference per year, and in that case, they prefer to attend something that is specifically YA-focused. In addition, statistics have shown that by having the Symposium in smaller venues, and moving it around the country, different people have the opportunity to attend. In St. Louis, 50% of attendees drove to the Symposium. Many of these were first-time attendees who don’t normally go to major national conferences. Holding the Symposium annually is one way to meet a need expressed by members to have more regional face-to-face opportunities to meet and engage with other YA professionals. (more…)

Midwinter was only a week ago, but so much of it is still fresh in my mind. Not just all the ballyhoos and love bombs, but all the really important work the YALSA Board did during the conference.

First, over the next few weeks I’ll be making appointments. Lots of appointments to lots of awesome new taskforces. Just like our Teen Space Guidelines, we’re looking for some ace teen librarians to help YALSA create some Programming Guidelines to help members and non-members alike ramp up, fundraise or create some library programs for teens. (more…)

I’m en route to Seattle even as I type this! What will the board and I be up to at the 2013 Midwinter conference? Keep reading to find out.

It’s going to be an awesome conference. We’ve got programs, meetings and activities everywhere. We’ll be talking about advocacy, collaborations, books and reading, the future of teen services in libraries and more.

First, I’ll be helping YALSA host the first National Forum on Teens & Libraries on January 23 and 24. This is the first summit of its kind, and we’ll be bringing leaders on youth development, libraries, technology, publishing, everything. The goal is figure out where teen services is going and where it needs to be in the 21st Century. ALA President Maureen Sullivan will be the lead moderator, and we’ve got some amazing special guest stars, including Lee Rainey, head of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Mizuko Ito, Professor in Residence and MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning at the University of California, Irvine, Renee Hobbs, Director of the Harrington School of Communications & Media at the University of Rhode Island and George Needham, Vice President for Global and Regional Councils at the Online Computer Library Center. We’ll be talking lots of teens, literacy, library, technology and more. I’ll even be leading the Youth Panel portion of the forum with special awesome teens from YALSA President-Elect Shannon Peterson. We’ll be tweeting, blogging and posting the entire time, so check out our social media channels to find out what’s going on.
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November President’s Report:

Key Activities:

Attended the 2012 YA Lit Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri and had a blast meeting all of the amazing attendees and authors! I’m really looking forward to 2014’s event, October 31-November 2 in Austin, Texas!

Worked closely with the YALSA Office, Linda Braun and the Forum Advisory Council to hone the details for the upcoming National Forum on Libraries and Teens summit in Seattle this January. Thanks to all of our members who applied! Learn more at www/ala.org/yaforum.

Participated in Giving Tuesday, a special after-Thanksgiving national fundraising effort to help YALSA build support for our Spectrum Scholarship.

Worked with the YALSA office to develop a new training module for Selection Committee Chairs. I’m looking forward to chatting with chairs and committee members on December 6 and 13!

Chaired the November board conference call. It was great hearing about all of the exciting work that YALSA’s committees, juries and taskforces are doing. Minutes will be posted in the governance section of the website.

Worked with the Executive Committee to review applications for the YALSAblog Member Manager position and set up phone interviews.
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Friends! What with Fall Exec, the YA Lit Symposium a whole lot more, the past few weeks have been super duper busy for me and all of YALSA. Here’s what we’ve been up to, but if you want to read about all of YALSA’s activities, be sure to read our eNewsletter, emailed directly to your inbox the second Tuesday of every month:

Key Activities:

Coordinated with Valerie Davis, chair of the Virtual Selection/Awards Manual Committee, to build out the first draft of the the manual which will launch after Midwinter 2013.

Attended the first meeting of the National Forum on Youth Services in Libraries Advisory Board meeting.

Met with ALA President Maureen Sullivan, Beth Yoke and Linda Braun to plan out the agenda for the upcoming National Forum on Youth Services in Libraries in Seattle.

Along with Shannon Peterson, led the 2012 ALA Fall Executive Committee meeting with the YALSA Executive Committee. You can find our agenda items and notes here.
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I was quite the eager little first-year grad student last year when I submitted my paper proposal for the 2012 YALSA YA Literature Symposium. My subject–biracial identity in YA–was something I had been interested in for awhile, so I was happy to have an outside force encouraging me to turn my informal research into something real and accountable. But that was in February, and lots of school happened in between that acceptance and presentation, including a lot of procrastinating.

But I still made it, and on the Saturday of the symposium, I presented my paper and did not melt, have a heart attack, or run out of the room screaming.

I thought I would end up titling this post either “How NOT to Present a Paper at a Conference” or “How to Be the Best Paper Presenter EVER,” but I’m not sure I have the authority to write either. If there are rules other than “don’t rush and talk too quickly” (oops–failed that one), please let me know. (more…)

I’m just back from YALSA’s 2012 YA Lit Symposium in St. Louis. It’s YALSA’s third Symposium, but—for a variety of reasons—my first. There will be much discussion over at The Hub about the actual programs and presentations, but I wanted to say a few words about something else that I observed over the course of three days.

I’ve been going to ALA Annual and Midwinter for over 15 years, and they are great. But a Symposium like this is something really special, and it’s all about the connections. Let me just give you a few examples that I observed:

• I was chatting with someone at a break who works at the library in the area where I grew up. We knew people in common from the library, but then I found out where she had gone to high school, and immediately took her over to introduce her to another YALSA member who went to that same high school—turned out they had overlapped by a year or two.
• A librarian told me that she was rooming at this Symposium with someone she had first met at the 2008 Lit Symposium.
• At the closing session, I was asked to take a picture of four librarians who had met and bonded at the symposium. They told me they were all “orphans” who had come alone, but met and had a great time together.
• At the Morris Lunch, a librarian who wanted to know more about staff development models happened to be seated with another librarian who does staff development as a full-time job.
• At the same table, a person who is interested in library apps like Boopsie was put in touch with someone in her local area who was involved in getting the app for her library.
• The symposium Twitter hashtag (#yalit12) was trending on Saturday afternoon, as attendees live-tweeted their sessions and got into back-and-forth discussions about what was being presented.
• I found new people to follow on Twitter, and new people followed me.
• Attendees had opportunities to have real conversations with authors at the Book Blitz on Saturday night, and at the networking breaks. (more…)