Monthly President’s Report – March 2012

Below is a summary of activities that I have completed or am working on.

Completed Tasks

• Committee Chairs: I had phone conversations with several YALSA committee chairs about the work of their committees.
• Committee/Jury/Taskforce Appointments:  I  appointed members to fill vacancies on several committees and continued appointing members to fill new task forces created by Board action at Midwinter.

Monthly President’s Report – February 2012

March kind of sneaked up on me, I guess because February is a short month. Below is a summary of activities that I have completed or am working on. Happy Teen Tech Week!

Completed Tasks

• Committee Chairs:  I had phone conversations with several YALSA committee chairs about the work of their committees.

• Board Activities:  
  • The Board had an online chat on February 1. Board members offered suggestions for the content of the selection and award committee chair and member webinars.
  • The Board met by telephone on February 29 to discuss chair quarterly reports and to take action on two requests for Board action that came from committees.
  • The Board voted to accept a proposal from the Morris Award committee to amend the eligibility rules to exclude self-published and e-book only books from consideration. The new rule will be re-evaluated after the 2013 award. (more…)

YALSA’s Board of Directors will meet via conference call on Feb. 29 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Eastern to review quarterly board reports. Any YALSA members interested in sitting in on the meeting can send a message to yalsa@ala.org to receive the phone number and access code.

Monthly President’s Report – September 2011

Below is a summary of activities that I have completed or am working on.

Completed Tasks

• Committee Chairs:
  • Had phone conversations with several YALSA committee chairs about the work of their committees.
• Board Activities:
  • Participated in September 7 Board chat on how the YALSA Board can be involved with Planned Giving and fundraising.
• (more…)

Monthly YALSA President’s Report – August 2011

Below is a summary of activities that I have completed or am working on.

Completed Tasks

• Committee Chairs:
  • Had phone conversations with several YALSA committee chairs.
  • Participated in conference calls with the chairs of Strategic Planning and 2011 Awards & Lists Marketing Taskforce.
  • Had a phone conversation with Linda Braun, chair of the Financial Advancement Committee, about ways to build up the Leadership Endowment.
  • Participated with ALSC and AASL Presidents in preparing and sending a letter to the chairs of the three divisions’ intellectual freedom committees/interest groups. (more…)

YALSA’s Board of Directors will meet via conference call on Friday August 26th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm, eastern, to review and discuss Quarterly Chair Reports. Any YALSA member who would like to sit in on the call may do so. Please contact Letitia Smith, YALSA’s Membership Coordinator, for the phone number and access code.

Also, draft minutes from the YALSA Board of Directors meetings held at ALA Annual in New Orleans are now posted on the YALSA website. You can view them at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/boardandcommittees/minutes/minutes_AN11_DRAFT.pdf

Monthly President’s Report – July 2011

My first month as YALSA President has been a busy one. Below is a summary of activities that I have completed or am working on.

Completed Tasks

• Presented two webinars for new chairs of  process committees, task forces, and juries about their roles and responsibilities.
• Presented (with Beth Yoke) a webinar for new board members about the relationship of YALSA and ALA.
• Had phone conversations with several YALSA committee chairs about the upcoming work of their committees.
• Had phone conversation with Lesley Farmer, YALSA’s IFLA representative, about the upcoming IFLA Conference and about what information about YALSA she should share there.
• Set up the @yalsapresident Twitter account, and began tweeting information about YALSA activities and linking to articles on teens and libraries.
• Filled a vacancy on the Best Fiction for Young Adults committee.
• Appointed members to a task force charged to write a manual for the Odyssey Award Committee.

(more…)

April was a month of celebrations as we acknowledged and celebrated School Library Month along with both National Library Week and National Volunteer Week during the week of April 10-16, 2011. And as always we celebrated Support Teen Literature Day on the Thursday of National Library week with the announcement of the 2011 Teens’ Top Ten nominations and the launch of the  Teen Read Week™ website.

Along with thanking all of our hardworking members and library workers this month, I also want to send out a special thank you to the 2011 Summer Reading TF chaired by Charli Osborne. This newly appointed group, not only came together to begin their task, but quickly organized themselves, reviewed and judged the  entries submitted for the Dollar General Summer Reading Grants. These $1,000 grants were given to 20 YALSA members who were recognized for an outstanding proposal of teen-focused summer reading programs.    (more…)

Teen Tech Week kept us all busy in March as we explored and shared the joys of technology with our teens. Thank you to all the YALSA members who participated in Teen Tech Week activities with the teens in your libraries! …and speaking of YALSA members, have you ever wondered just who it is that makes up the YALSA membership? Here is a snapshot that shows just who your fellow members are:

Total membership: 5,416 (1.3% increase over this time last year)

11% are academics

24% are students

26% are school librarians

37% are public librarians

2% are other (retirees, friends, etc.) (more…)

Happy Teen Tech Week™, YALSA members! Thanks go out to the Margaret Edwards Trust for funding the TTW mini grants, and thanks to the TTW Committee for the great e-resources they created.  Many thanks also to Stephanie Kuenn, who submitted the application for a Carnegie Whitney Grant. Our application was successful and we received an ALA Carnegie Whitney Grant to self-publish a book focused on summer reading programs to be edited by Kat Kan. Thank you also to the WrestleMania Reading Challenge Jury for judging submissions and announcing the regional winners of the WrestleMania Reading Challenge. Details on the contest, winners and the next round of the challenge can be found here.  Thanks to the Mattel Foundation and WWE for funding the program. (more…)