YALSA Board Annual Conference Round Up!

Hello everyone! Wowsers was the Board busy at Annual conference in Chicago last month! We had some pretty substantial convos and created several new task forces, resources and committees that will provide more ways for you all to get involved. Here’s a quick recap of some highlights of what happened over the three days that we met. For more details on these items, see the official Board documents. The official minutes will also be posted in the Governance section of the website in the near future.

• For its “mega issue” the board discussed how to better identify and promote best practices in teen services and continued the discussion at the Membership Meeting.

• The board directed the Executive Director to work with staff to pilot a new overall schedule for celebrating YALSA’s book awards at conferences. ‘ Staff will get input from the award sponsors and publishers and then determine a new schedule to try for 2014.

• The Board considered and tabled a request for Board action to make a change to the Morris Committee’s charge. ‘ It will be revisited once the pilot schedule has been determined.

• The Board agreed to adopt the recommendations around Board transparency presented in a proposal from Board Fellow Carrie Kausch

• Meeting with ALA Executive Committee representative Rob Banks and ALA Budget Analysis and Review Committee representative Clara Bohrer, the Board shared comments about ALA and YALSA continuing education efforts, the fiscal health of the organization and more.

• The Board approved resolutions honoring outgoing Board members Linda Braun, Priscille Dando, Sarah Flowers and Carrie Kausch

• The Board welcomed and officially seated incoming at-large Board members Joy Kim, Maureen Hartman, Carla Land, Krista McKenzie and April Wittaveen

New Task Forces & Committees

• A Makerspace Resources Taskforce which will create a variety of resources to help members learn about the maker movement and how libraries can be a part of it in order to increase their value in their community.

• A Student Engagement Taskforce will form to develop a plan of action that will focus on supporting the needs of LIS students who are studying to become future teen services librarians, increase their engagement in YALSA, and scaffold their transition to full-time active YALSA members upon graduation.

• The YALSA President will work with ALISE to create a joint group to create a PhD Fellowship Proposal for the Board’s consideration

• A Taskforce on Professional Values and Career Development will investigate best practices in associations and professionalism, then identify core professionalism values of a librarian or library worker serving teens, and use it for a basis for creating guidelines for professionalism for librarians and library workers who work with and for teens.

• A Library Administrators Resources Taskforce will coordinate the development of new content, including case studies that illustrate the value of teen services, aimed at library administrators and work with staff to disseminate the content.

• The Board agreed in concept to establish an interdivisional committee with RUSA that would provide forums for discussion, sharing, and learning relating to the provision of reference, information, and homework help services to young adults.

• The Board agreed to establish a standing Board committee on advocacy.

If you’re interested in serving on any of these taskforces, please reach out to Shannon Peterson to let her know! She’ll be busy making these new appointments this summer!

On a personal note, I would like to add that it’s been amazing–a total honor and pleasure–to serve as president of YALSA and as leader of the YALSA Board for the past year. You all can be completely confident that every YALSA Board member takes his or her role seriously and strives to keep members’ needs in the forefront in every discussion. That doesn’t mean we always agree, and sometimes it means making hard decisions about how to proceed, but always it means that Board members have the best interests of YALSA and its membership at heart. Looking forward, I know that Shannon Peterson will totally rock the heck out of her Presidential year, and I can’t wait support her! In fact, I already am!

For more details about the entire 2012-13 year for YALSA, please also take a look at my Annual Report, which focuses on the programmatic accomplishments of the year, and the Annual Report of YALSA Executive Director Beth Yoke, which focuses on the more technical aspects of membership support and funding sources.

Thank you for everything! It’s been awesome.

Jack Martin, Super-Immediate Past President, YALSA