For the past four months, I have been serving as the first YALSA Board Fellow. Applications for the next term are due December 1st . Because I am having such a positive experience, I want to share a bit about it to encourage members to apply. I will divide this up into a few different blog posts. Today, I want to address why I applied. Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments, or you can find me on Twitter @DogearedCarrie.
I have been actively involved with YALSA since 2009, which is when I volunteered to serve on the Local Arrangements committee for Annual in Washington D.C. Since then, I have served on and chaired several process committees. I have enjoyed learning about different aspects of YALSA, yet I knew there was more to the organization. When I learned about the creation of the Board Fellow, I knew it was an opportunity to learn more about the bigger picture of YALSA, how it is run, and how it fits in to ALA. Leadership skills were something else I hoped to gain if I was selected to serve.
While I had some experience in YALSA, I believed I was still fairly new to the organization. I hoped that I could be a voice on the board for those who are new to YALSA, feeling a bit overwhelmed, or don’t know where to start. I also thought I would be an additional voice as a school librarian. Surveys conducted by YALSA consistently show that school librarians often feel as if they are a minority in the organization. I knew that several YALSA board members were school librarians, but thought another one can never hurt.
Think about applying! Ask yourself: what can I do for YALSA? What could I gain from this experience? I found that I benefitted from the reflection that took place as I completed my application. Don’t forget – applications are due December 1st!
Although the YALSA Board of Directors does a lot of work online and on the telephone throughout the year, our face-to-face meetings at ALA Midwinter and ALA Annual are big occasions for us to have some weighty discussions and make some major decisions. The agenda and board documents for Annual are now available online at www.ala.org/yalsa/workingwithyalsa/governance/board/annual2012. All members are welcome to attend any Board meeting.
The YALSA Board meeting at Annual is actually three separate meetings:
- Saturday, from 2:30-5:30, in the Convention Center, Room 211A
- Sunday, from 4-5:30, in the Convention Center, Room 211B
- Monday, from 1:30-3:30, in the Convention Center, Room 212 B
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Monthly President’s Report – April 2012
April was a very interesting month for me on the YALSA front. I’m just back from a week in Washington, D.C. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of last week, YALSA Executive Director Beth Yoke and I, along with several hundred other library supporters, attended National Library Legislative Day. Beth and I had eight separate meetings over two days, with legislators’ staff members, and with representatives from other organizations that have similar interests to YALSA, such as the Afterschool Alliance, the Center for Excellent Education, and the International Reading Association. We talked about how we could support one another’s missions.
Then on Friday and Saturday of the same week, I staffed the YALSA booth at the USA Science and Engineering Festival at the Washington Convention Center. Along with DC-area YALSA members, I handed out bookmarks and flyers, showed the demo of the YALSA Teen Book Finder App (available in May—we hope—from Apple’s App Store), chatted with teens, parents, teachers, and librarians, and did some on-the-fly readers’ advisory. We encouraged teens to participate in this year’s Teens’ Top Ten, and there was a lot of interest and enthusiasm.
Below is a summary of activities that I have completed or am working on. (more…)
