Teens’ Top Ten Voting Begins Monday! The Teens’ Top Ten opens for voting on Monday! Teens can vote for their favorite books from the past year at the Teens’ Top Ten website through Sept. 18. We’re giving teens four weeks to vote this year, to make sure that every teen’s vote counts. Winners will be announced in a webcast featuring World Wrestling Entertainment Superstars and Divas (plus a few special guests!) during Teen Read Week, Oct. 18-24.
Canada: The New Frontier for the WrestleMania Reading Challenge For the first time, YALSA and World Wrestling Entertainment will open registration for the WrestleMania Reading Challenge to Canadian residents, excluding Quebec. Registration at this time is open only to residents of Canada (excluding Quebec). Canadian librarians can sign up using an online form through Aug. 31.
Go Back to School with YALSA Relive your school days and sign up for YALSA’s top-notch professional development! We’re offering three classes for the fall session (including two brand-new courses). Join us for AIMing at Tweens: Advising, Involving, Motivating (taught by Teri Lesesne); Graphic Novels and Teen Readers: The Basics and Beyond (taught by Francisca Goldsmith) and Reaching Teens with Gaming (taught by Beth Gallaway). Read descriptions and register at’ YALSA’s Online Courses page. Registration ends Oct. 2.
After the jump, find out about how to propose a session or win a travel stipend for the YA Lit Symposium in 2010, encourage your patrons to nominate you for the 2009 I Love My Librarian Award, sign up for Teen Read Week, and more.
YALSA’s YA Lit Symposium Needs You Think about joining YALSA in 2010 for the Young Adult Literature Symposium, Nov. 5-7, 2010, in Albuquerque, N.M, with a theme’ of “Beyond Good Intentions: Teens, Literature and Diversity.†Proposals for programs, papers, and the preconference will be accepted at the symposium website through Oct. 1. We’re also giving away two stipends to offset travel costs, one for someone whose worked directly with teens in a library setting for ten years or less and one for a student in an ALA-accredited MLS program (you must be enrolled in an MLS program at the start of the symposium); stipend applications are due by Jan. 4, 2010. Details on both are available at www.ala.org/yalitsymposium.
Congrats to Cristina Mitra! Cristina Mitra is YALSA’s 2009-2010 Spectrum scholar. Mitra will use the funds to earn an MLS at the’ San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science. YALSA was able to sponsor a Spectrum scholar this year through donations to the Friends of YALSA.
I Love My Librarian Nominations Now Open Nominations are now open for the 2009 Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award. The award invites library users to recognize the accomplishments of librarians in public, school, college, community college and university libraries for their efforts to improve the lives of people in their community. Nominations will run through October 9 and are being accepted online at www.ilovelibraries.org/ilovemylibrarian. You can also find information on the 2008 winners and download publicity tools at the I Love My Librarian website.
Teen Read Week Registration: Don’t Forget Teen Read Week is coming up fast! Make sure you’re registered so you can download the 2009 theme logo, Read Beyond Reality @ your library. After you’ve registered, check out the Teen Read Week website for ideas and download publicity tools to get the word out at your school or in your community. Then, post what you’re doing this year on the Teen Read Week wiki.
Bundled Registration Opens Soon Bundled registration for ALA’s 2010 Midwinter Meeting (Boston, Jan. 15-19) and Annual Conference (Washington, D.C., June 24-29) opens on Sept. 1. Bundled registration costs $300 for YALSA members (and even less for students), a $60 savings. Learn more at the Midwinter Registration webpage.
That’s it for this week’s update! To stay up to date on the latest from the YALSA Office, sign up to follow YALSA on Twitter or become a fan of YALSA on Facebook!