The American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) is soliciting nominations for best library practices using cutting-edge technology.

“We want to showcase libraries that are serving their communities with novel and innovative methods and provide the library community with some successful models for delivering quality library service in new ways,” said Vivian Pisano, Chair of OITP’s America’s Libraries for the 21st Century Subcommittee.

If you wish to submit a nomination, please complete and submit the form available at http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oitp/Cutting%20Edge/Nomination-Form.doc and send it to the American Library Association, Office for Information Technology Policy, 1615 New Hampshire Avenue NW, 1st Floor, Washington, D.C. 20009 or by e-mail to ainouye@alawash.org by September 1, 2009.  Further details about the nomination process and the form may be found at http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oitp/Cutting%20Edge/Call%20for%20Nominations.pdf

The America’s Libraries for the 21st Century Subcommittee will review all nominations and conduct selected interviews or site visits to identify those libraries that are truly offering a best practice or most innovative service.  Libraries or library service areas selected will be publicized via the OITP Web site, highlighted through ALA publications, and featured in a program at the ALA Annual Conference in 2010.

If you offer me a choice between going to a conference program and observing the work of a committee or board…I’ll pick the committee  and board stuff almost every time. You’ll find debate, controversy, and loads of interesting discussions.

Yesterday, I observed the ALA Executive Board. They had a pretty interesting agenda, including a report on librarian demographics. It was fascinating stuff and merits discussion amongst a wider audience.

The demographers have not compiled their findings into a final report, and it will probably be a while before we see their interpretations. I’ll walk you through the slides, but keep in mind…while the numbers aren’t completely raw, you might consider them still medium-rare. As such I defer to the ALA Office for Research & Statistics when it comes to explaining all the charts and graphs. And keep in mind these caveats: this data represents particular snapshots and projections. It can be difficult to predict trends.

[Update: I hope you'll open the exec board doc with the charts and look at it alongside my comments. There's a lot more to see than what I mention.]

Slide 3: Credentialed Librarians by Age, 2005

These numbers are from census data, meaning this represents librarians throughout the US. There is an obvious bubble in the Baby Boomer age group, but interestingly, the numbers are concentrated in the first half of the Baby Boom. One of the demographers mentioned that the number of MLS degrees issued peaked in the 1970s. As the Boomers aged, they continued to join our profession, so the number of librarians in this age group continued to grow across the next thirty years. Note these numbers are for  2005, so projecting forward, 40% of librarians are age 54-63.

Slide 4: GM Auto Workers by Age and Sex, 2006

This is here as a comparison to other professions and industries. The same Baby Boom bubble is apparent, but you’ll also notice the steep decline around age 45. Seniority rules mean that workers under 45 are most likely to be laid off, so they’re simply not present in the GM workforce.

Slide 5: Credentialed Librarians by Gender and Age, 1980 & 1990

These are snapshots of the profession in 1980 and 1990. In 1980, the Boomer bubble occurs around age 30, and overall the profession appears fairly young. In 1990, the Boomer bubble has moved to age 40 and grown a bit in the meantime.

Slide 6: Credentialed Librarians by Gender and Age, 2000 & 2005

By 2000, the Boomer bubble has reached 50, and in 2005, it’s at 55. Since 1980, the profession has aged significantly.

Slide 8: Credentialed Librarians by Gender and Age, 1995

Same stuff we just saw, this is here to make the next couple of slides possible. Can you spot the Boomer bubble?

Slide 9: Credentialed Librarians Growth 1995-2005

Alrighty. The light blue represents the 1995 numbers aged forward 10 years.  The purple shows  people who have entered the profession since 1995. Remember, this represents a sample, so it doesn’t mean that there were no 39 year old males or 54 year old females who became librarians from 1995-2005, it just means there weren’t any in this sample. If you look past the choppiness, you can still get a general idea of what is going on…librarians enter the profession at many different ages.

Slide 10: 1995 Credentialed Librarians Aged to 2005

Once again, same data from slide 8 aged to 2005, but this time (represented in light green) we’re looking at individuals who have left the profession (through retirement, death, career change, etc). The demographers mentioned that men tend to enter the profession earlier, and they follow more traditional (i.e. earlier) retirement patterns than women.

Intermission. Switch gears, we’re blazing ahead to the future.

Slide 11: Number of Credentialed Librarians by Age 1980-2006

Once again, we’re looking at snapshots of the profession at particular moments in time. This chart shows quite clearly that young librarians were prevalent in 1980, and we can watch the Boomer bubble (and the profession overall) age as we progress to 2005.

Slide 13: Projected 2015 Data

There’s the 2005 data from the last slide, alongside three different versions of what 2015 might look like. The first is based on the changes that occurred from 1980 to 1990, the second on 1990-2000, and the third on 1995-2005. While the projections are generally similar, note the differences in the 65-70 and 70+ categories. (There’s a funny dip in the 50-54s for the set on the right. Yup, it’s weird, and nope, the demographers aren’t really sure what’s going on.)

Slide 14: Percent of Credentialed Librarians Age 60+

The left half of the graph represents actual numbers, the right half are all 2015 projections, based on different rates as in slide 13. From what the demographers said, I got the impression that the 1995-2005 scenario is mostly likely. You can see that from 1980-2000, the number of librarians aged 60+ was fairly constant at 10%. In 2005, it jumps to a little over 15%, but in 2015, we’re looking at 27-30% at age 60+.

Slide 15: Estimated and Projected Credentialed Librarian Retirements by Decade

This chart illustrates the impending wave of librarian retirements that we’ve been hearing about for a while. We’re already four years into the 2005-2015 projections. Of course, in recent years we’ve witnessed that Boomers are delaying retirement.

Slide 17: Projected Retirements of 2009 Domestic Working ALA Members

This slide represents just ALA members.

Slide 18: Anticipated Member Retirements 2009–2020

More ALA member-only data. The graph on the left is actual 2009 numbers, while the middle and right graphs are projections. Like slide 10, the projections show 2009 members aged forward to 2015 and 2020, with light green representing anticipated retirements (or people leaving the profession for other reasons). Notice the growth in the 70+ category.

Slide 19: Credentialed Librarians: Hours Worked by Age and Gender

I think we’re back to census data, but don’t quote me on that. This slide shows a general trend towards part-time work as librarians age. (Again, this is a sample, not everybody, so there’s potential for a certain choppiness. Yes, there are  probably 70+ year old males somewhere who worked 33 hours a week, it just happens that there weren’t any in this sample.)

Slide 20: Census Credentialed Librarian vs. ALA Membership Age Distributions

This might be one of the most interesting charts, but also the hardest to interpret. Here we compare total librarians compared to ALA members. My notes say that this is data for 2005. I think the member data used is from 2009, adjusted backwards for 2005. Note these are percentages; I’d like to see the actual numbers. At first glance, it looks like younger librarians are more likely to be ALA members. Of course, students enrolled in library degree programs aren’t credentialed, and therefore not included in the census numbers  (those are the blue bars). I’d like to see library school students included in this data somehow. The difference between ALA members and total librarians might also be affected by the definition of credentialed librarian. It looks like the turnaround point for ALA membership is age 40, but when asked about this, the demographers mentioned that ALA’s drop in market share with regards to membership begins around age 30. (I’d really like to see more data there.)

Alright, that’s a lot to digest. Interesting to consider it alongside discussions about how to make ALA more responsive to younger members. What do you think?

Matthew Moffett and Pam Spencer Holley discuss the new book Pam edited for YALSA, Popular Reads for Teens, and the history of some YALSA book lists. The book compiles information from Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults and Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers along with annotations and program ideas.
Listen

The ALA Committee on Literacy invites members to a discussion and planning meeting on Saturday, July 11 at 1:30 pm at McCormick Place West in W-176c to share ideas about an exciting new project to support online information and learning opportunities for adults and teens with low reading skills.

The objective of this meeting is to explore the possibility of a national project to support cooperative collection development of online information portals for adults and teens with low literacy skills. Project participants would share responsibility for and access to a web library that will respond to the common information needs of teens and adults with low reading skills.

At the meeting we will look at some existing web portals, like Internet Public Library and the Beehive. We will also showcase many websites that could be incorporated into a larger portal.

Please join us to discuss these ideas. The meeting will be led by Robin Osborne, Director of the Office of Community Connections at the Westchester Library System (NY) and editor of From Outreach to Equity: Innovative Models of Library Policy and Practice (ALA Editions, 2004).

For more information contact Robin Osborne at rosborne@wlsmail.org.

By now, I’m sure you know that YALSA is seeking to provide more and different ways for members to participate in the division.  One of the ways this is happening is the transition of small committees to formats that allow for broader participation (with no conference attendance requirements!).

YALSA’s Outreach to Young Adults with Special Needs Committee is being restructured as an Interest Group so that any YALSA member interested in library services to young adults who do not or cannot use the library because of socioeconomic, legal, educational, or physical factors may participate.

As a committee, YALSA Outreach to Young Adults with Special Needs has been involved with several recent projects including:

• Selecting the titles, discussion questions and supplemental reading list for the Great Stories CLUB.
• Hosting the “Hyperlinks: Technology as an Outreach Tool” program at Annual 2008.
• Creating the hospital outreach guidelines for the Operation Teen Book Drop.

The new Interest Group format still allows participants to sponsor programs, publish and do many of the same things as smaller committees. Current members of the Outreach Committee have also discussed possible programs, papers and even books on library services to teens experiencing homelessness, teens who are undocumented and teens in the foster care system, just to name a few, so there are lots of ways the new Interest Group can have an impact in the future.

If you would like to help make this exciting change, please send the following information to vcterrile@yahoo.com: name, ALA member number, institution, email, address, and phone number. We need 15 YALSA members on the petition to take it to the YALSA Board. The transition will be complete in 2010.

If you have any questions at all about the YALSA Outreach to Young Adults with Special Needs Interest Group, please feel free to contact vcterrile@yahoo.com or vikki.terrile@ queenslibrary.org

Hi-ho, Heidi the Blog Manager here, reporting to you live from my first day on the job. I’d like to start with a big round of applause for Linda Braun, who got this whole thing started and helped it grow to 10,000+ pageviews per month. Thanks, Linda, for your outstanding contributions to YALSA. If you’d like to take a little trip down memory lane, here’s Linda’s first post, back on January 9th, 2006.

Every five years, ALA conducts a major evaluation of programs and services and plans for the future. A series of discussion forums will be held at state and regional meetings in the coming months to gather ideas.  Be sure to attend and advocate for the interests of teens and YALSA! 9000 members participated in a recent survey to evaluate our progress towards the 2010 goals and help shape our association in the years to come. Were your opinions counted? Be on the lookout for opportunities to provide feedback and have a voice in ALA’s new strategic plan. What is your vision for the future of ALA?

My library has seen a surge of interest in volunteering lately, and we’re looking for ways to balance the number of people who’d like to volunteer with the energy and staff time it takes to manage a good volunteer program. We see lots of teens who have been assigned volunteer service as part of a probation agreement with the courts, and with the tight job market, some teens who can’t find work are searching for alternatives to gain experience that could land them a job in the future.

One of the challenges we face is giving teens tasks that are meaningful yet don’t involve an intensive amount of training from staff. What are your favorite volunteer tasks for teens? How do you handle training and orientation? For many teens, a volunteer job at the library is their first experience with a professional work environment. How can we help prepare teens for their first paid job?

Howdy YALSA Members!

Please join YALSA Tuesday June 9th for a discussion about the impact of the recession on library workers who serve teens and how the association might provide support to our members in this economic climate. YALSA President Sarah Debraski will convene the discussion at 8:00PM, eastern in YALSA’s space on ALA Connect at http://connect.ala.org/yalsa. Please feel free to drop in any time between 8:00 and 9:00PM, eastern to share your thoughts and/or listen to what others have to say on the topic. Click on the link called ‘chat’ in the upper right corner of the page at any time between 8 and 9 to participate.

If you are new to ALA Connect, which launched just last month, please know that members log in to Connect using their regular ALA Web site username and password. Members do NOT need to create a new account when accessing Connect for the first time–simply log in via the box in the upper left corner. To learn more about ALA Connect, visit http://connect.ala.org/node/70772.

When you are at http://connect.ala.org/yalsa please take a moment to answer the poll about voice chats, as this will help YALSA plan future online activities. Thank you and we look forward to chatting with you on June 9th!