It’s been another busy month in YALSA land. Here’s what’s been going on!

Key Activities:

Collaborated with the Digital Media and Learning team to build out a month-long series about Teens and the Future of Libraries for connectedlearning.tv. Each episode is hosted every Tuesday in May with a different topic. The full schedule is:

May 2: Kick-off: Teens and the Future of Libraries

May 7: The Importance of Youth Access to Technology in Libraries

May 14: Effectively Leveraging Social Media in Library Programs

May 21: Getting Library & IT Administrators On-Board with Leveraging Social Media

May 28: Teens and the Future of Libraries: Sharing Best Practices (more…)

What’s been happening at YALSA? Tons of cool stuff! From the Common Core to Connected Learning to Taskforces, Teen Tech Week and more! It’s all here…

Key Activities:

Collaborated with ALSC and AASL to create and appoint the inter-divisional Common Core Task Force, a team tasked with developing materials to educate members of all three divisions on the Common Core.

Chaired the March YALSA Board meeting via conference call. Draft minutes from the call are online at http://ow.ly/jHX4c

Attended the Digital Media & Learning Conference and met with the Connected Learning team to plan YALSA’s partnership with Connected Learning TV in May.  More information is online at www.ala.org/yalsa/issues-current-projects

Convened a key discussion with YALSA members serving on various research-focused committees around the future of YALSA’s research agenda.

Represented YALSA at the Children’s Book Council Meeting on March 22 to share YALSA’s new resources and initiatives.

Appointed several new taskforces, including the Teen Tech Week and Teen Read Week Evaluation taskforces, the Programming Guidelines taskforce and more.

Outreach & Media:

Interviewed by New Jersey Public Radio on Teen Tech Week.
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What in the world have I been up to lately? It’s all here.

Key Activities:

Worked with the Board to appoint the fabulous Carla Land as the 2013-14 YALSA Board Fellow. We are thrilled to have her as part of the team!

Worked with the Board to appoint Pam Spencer Holley to fill the vacant position of Fiscal Officer. Pam will be working closely with the Board, the Executive Committee and the FInancial Advancement Committee Chair to help YALSA members and the public better understand YALSA’s finances. Thank you, Pam!

Had an inspiring, eye-opening, amazing time at the Summit on Teens & Libraries. We learned about teens, technology, Connected Learning and so much more. Save the date for March 19 so you can participate in the first virtual town hall on leveraging partnerships between libraries and other organizations: www.ala.org/yaforum & on Twitter: #yalsaforum.
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Ever wonder what’s going on with the Division? A ton of great information can be found under the “Working with YALSA” portion of the website.  The minutes from the YALSA Board and the YALSA Executive Committee meetings (as well as supporting documents) can be found there in the Governance section.

Check out the draft Board minutes from Midwinter here and draft Exec Committee minutes here.

Sarajo Wentling

Secretary, YALSA Board of Directors

There’s a YALSA initiative that tends to regularly bubble up in conversation with notable nostalgia and fondness: the 2008 YALSA Road Trip. Well, fear not dear members, I’m happy to report that it’s back. With 2013 sensibilities.

The YALSA Board voted unanimously at the Mdiwinter meeting to create a taskforce that will identify ten state or regional public and school library conferences to visit in the next year. Once identified, the task force will recruit local YALSA members to staff a booth, present a program, and/or host a suitably YALSA-tastic event armed with a toolkit packed with suggestions, guidelines, and strategies.
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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…)

ALA Council is the governing body of ALA. Council meets during Midwinter and Annual, with significant electronic communication in between.

I’m an ‘at-large’ Councilor, which means I’m not representing a particular state, ALA division, or roundtable like some other Councilors do. For example, all divisions (like the youth ones, ALSC, AASL, and YALSA) have an ALA Council representative. There’s also an Executive Board and Council Officers as well. While the structure of Council might sound complicated and can be at times, every Councilor there has an important role.

Though not every issue Council discussed at Midwinter had to do with our service population, I have briefly summarized those issues which did apply below:

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One of the tasks of YALSA’s Organization and Bylaws (O&B) Committee is to review the association’s bylaws with an eye toward accuracy, consistency, and success in supporting the work of the organization. This fall the current O&B Committee took a close look at the YALSA Bylaws and proposed several updates and changes to the document. The YALSA Board discussed and approved the proposal at their Midwinter Meetings and now the membership needs to cast their vote on whether to adopt the proposed changes. None of the changes will take place unless the majority of the membership votes in favor for them. That means the proposed revisions will be included on the YALSA ballot this spring: (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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