The YALSA Update: TRW 2011, Teens’ Top Ten & More!

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Start Planning for Teen Read Week! The 2011 Teen Read Week website is now live! Visit and register today (the first 300 registrants will receive a free copy of The Odyssey by Gareth Hinds, who created the artwork for Teen Read Week this year, courtesy of Candlewick Press). Check out our program ideas, planning resources, and publicity tools and find out how you can win a $1,000 grant for TRW programming! Learn more and get ready to Picture It @ your library at www.ala.org/teenread.

Summer Reading Made Easy: The Teens’ Top Ten Planning for summer reading? Make sure to include the Teens’ Top Ten! This year’s list of 25 nominees was chosen by teens in sixteen book groups from across the country. Encourage teens to read the 25 titles by mid-August, when voting opens. We’ll announce the winners during Teen Read Week! See the full list and download annotations at www.ala.org/teenstopten.

Free Webinar for YALSA Members Next Thursday! Are you a YALSA member? Join us for Job Hunting Simplified next Thursday with Courtney Young! This webinar will take place April 21 at 2 p.m. EDT and is free for YALSA members. If you’re a YALSA member interested in attending this session, please contact Eve Gaus at egaus@ala.org or 1-800-545-2433, ext. 5293, to register by Tuesday, April 19.

Don’t Forget to Vote! The ALA/YALSA Election ends next Friday, April 22. All YALSA members who were paid up through Jan. 31 received ballots via email in March. Be sure to vote before the deadline — your input will help shape YALSA’s future!

After the jump, details on YALSA’s upcoming webinars, summer online courses, ALA Annual Conference, and more!

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Happy Support Teen Literature Day!

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Each year on the Thursday of National Library Week, YALSA celebrates Support Teen Literature Day, a day to hightlight the teen literature at your library and encourage teens and everyone else to check it out.

In honor of Support Teen Literature Day, YALSA launched the Teen Read Week website, with resources, activity ideas, publicity tools and more, all related to this year’s theme, Picture It @ your library! Visit the site and learn more about this year’s theme, which encourages read graphic novels and’ other illustrated materials, seek out creative books, or imagine the world through’ literature,’ just’ for the fun of it. Visit the site and register, and you could receive a free copy of The Odyssey by Gareth Hinds, the artist who created the Picture It artwork. We’re also accepting applications for 10, $1,000 Teen Read Week Mini Grants, funded by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. Visit www.ala.org/teenread to learn more and get ready to Picture It @ your library, Oct. 16-22!

Also, YALSA today announced the official 25 nominees for the Teens’ Top Ten! Teens’ Top Ten is a “teen choice” list, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year! Nominators are members of teen book groups in sixteen school and public libraries around the country. You can see this year’s nominees at www.ala.org/teenstopten, and check out this Teens’ Top Ten post from The Hub, YALSA’s YA lit blog, about this year’s nominees. Happy reading!

Finally, we’d like to salute our friends at Figment.com and Readergirlz for their efforts on Support Teen Literature Day as they Rock the Drop 2011. They’ve encouraged teen lit authors, librarians, and fans to leave a favorite YA book out in a public place to raise awareness and get people reading. Find out more at Readergirlz Rock the Drop website. If you’re on Twitter and plan to participate, tell us what you did and use the tag #rockthedrop.

What else are you doing for Support Teen Literature Day?

ALA/YALSA Wiki Outage Next Week

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Next week, ALA will begin migrating its wikis to a new server. Beginning Monday, April 18, all ALA wikis will be locked down for editing during the migration. You will be able to read content, but you won’t be able to update it. As the migration progresses, wikis will be opened for editing, but due to the volume of work involved in the migration, the outage could last until Friday, April 22.

So, to summarize: you can still read content on any ALA or YALSA wiki, but you won’t be able to make any changes. If you have any questions about the wiki migration, please contact Stevie Kuenn, YALSA’s web services manager, at skuenn@ala.org.

We are sorry for the inconvenience, but rest assured, this will improve our wiki services. Thank you in advance for your patience!

ALA Connect downtime tonight, 7 to 9 p.m.

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ALA Connect will be down tonight from 7-9 p.m. Central for server migration and upgrades. This means if you’re planning on participating in this week’s YA Forum on Self-Censorship, you won’t be able to between 7 and 9 p.m. tonight, so please plan accordingly! We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but the downtime will result in a more robust ALA Connect, so trust us when we say it’s worth it! After the jump, you can find out more about the migration from ALA’s ITTS department.

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Join YALSA’s new monthly discussion forum!

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Next Monday, YALSA will launch a new member benefit: the YA Forum monthly discussion! All YALSA members are invited to participate in an asynchronous discussion on hot topics in YA services in YALSA’s ALA Connect space during the first week of the month. Each forum will be moderated by an expert in the field. Throughout the week members are encouraged to check in to the discussion forum and ask questions and contribute to the on-going discussion.’  The forum ‘ will open at 10am EST on the first Monday of the month and will close the following Friday at 3pm EST.

We’ll be kicking off YA Forum this Monday, April 4, with a discussion on self-censorship led by Stephanie Reynolds, convenor of YALSA’s Intellectual Freedom Interest Group.

To access the YA Forum discussion, you must be a YALSA member. Starting at 10 a.m. Eastern, members can join the conversation by logging into ALA Connect and choosing “YALSA” under “My ALA Groups,” then selecting “Discussions” on the upper right.

If you have questions or trouble accessing the discussion, please contact Eve Gaus, YALSA’s program officer for continuing education, at egaus@ala.org or 1-800-545-2433, ext. 2128.

Submit your summer reading program for YALSA’s new book!

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YALSA is planning a new publication, YALSA’s Complete Summer Reading Program Manual for Teen and Tween Services.

Kat Kan, the book’s editor, is looking for information on summer reading programs and the other kinds of programming libraries do for teens and tweens during the summer.’  Want more information or interested in submitting your summer reading program? Visit the book’s website!

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ALA President Roberta Stevens on the Why I Need My Library contest

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ALA President Roberta Stevens launched the Why I Need My Library video contest for teens earlier this year, in which teens can win up to $3,000 for their school or public library. In an interview at I Love Libraries, Stevens talks about why she chose to reach out to this age group:

Q:’  Tell us why you why you elected to focus on a contest for young people as part of your ALA Presidential Initiative efforts?

A:’  Building support for libraries is the focus of all three of my Presidential initiatives: “Our Authors, Our Advocates,” “Frontline Fundraising” and the “Why I Need My Library Contest.” Millions of young people use school and local public libraries every day. The contest is an opportunity to hear their powerful voices on the critical role libraries are playing in their communities.

Q:’  How and why do you feel social media, like YouTube, can be a powerful tool for library advocacy?

A:’  The reach of social media, and YouTube in particular, is immediate, inexpensive and effective.’  I thought it would be a way to unleash the creativity of teens and share their messages. Libraries can also take the videos and include them on their websites! I’d love to have the contest’s videos go viral and build nationwide support for libraries.

Read the entire interview, and find out how teens at your library can enter the contest, at www.ILoveLibraries.org/whyineedmylibrary.

Learn more about Walter Dean Myers, YA author, Printz winner & YALSA precon speaker!

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Last week, Hillel Italie of the Associated Press profiled Walter Dean Myers, one of a few authors to win both the Printz and Edwards awards from YALSA, on his enduring popularity with teen readers. Read on to see why YALSA chose Myers to be a featured speaker at Give Them What They Want: Reaching Reluctant Readers, YALSA’s half-day Annual preconference in New Orleans on June 24, 12:30 – 4:30 p.m.

Among the kids at the Promise Academy and around the country, Walter Dean Myers is a must-read whose books have sold millions of copies and have a special appeal for the toughest of people to reach, boys. He is able, like few writers, to relate to his readers as they live today.

And he is old enough to be their grandfather.

Myers, 73, has written dozens of novels, plays and biographies. He has received three National Book Award nominations and won many prizes, including a lifetime achievement honor from the American Library Association and five Coretta Scott King awards for African-American fiction. He is also the most engaged of writers, spending hours with young people at schools, libraries and prisons, giving talks and advice on life and work, his own rise from high-school dropout to best-selling author, a story that translates across generations.

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You & Your Teens Can Win an E-Reader from Figment This Teen Tech Week

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You’ve made all your plans for Teen Tech Week and are just about ready to celebrate Mix & Mash @ your library, March 6-12. But as you finalize those details, be sure to include two contests from YALSA and TTW Promotional Partner Figment.com in your plans! One contest, starting next Monday, gives teens an opportunity to win a Nook e-reader and a $50 gift card at Amazon.com. Beginning March 9, you could win an e-reader too! Read on for details

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YALSA Update: Deadlines galore next week

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Applications due for JRLYA, YALS: YALSA is seeking a Member Editor for both the Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults and Young Adult Library Services. Applications are due March 1. Learn more about the JRLYA position and the YALS position. Questions about either can be sent to Stephanie Kuenn, YALSA’s web services manager, at skuenn@ala.org.

Summer Reading Grant applications due: With funding from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, YALSA will distribute 20 $1,000 grants for summer reading programs to members who live in states that have Dollar General stores. Learn more about the summer reading grants and find out how to apply at the Summer Reading Grants webpage. Applications are due March 1.

Early Bird registration ends for ALA Annual: Early bird registration for ALA’s Annual Conference ends March 4! Register by March 4 to receive the lowest pricing available. Arrive by Friday afternoon for one of YALSA’s two preconferences, Give Them What They Want: Reaching Reluctant YA Readers and The Nuts & Bolts of Serving Teens: Practical Tips for the Library Generalist or New YA Librarian, and consider joining YALSA for any of our special events, including the Edwards Luncheon with Sir Terry Pratchett, the YA Authors Coffee Klatch, or the Printz Award Program and Reception. To learn more about these events, and other selected YALSA programs, visit YALSA’s Annual Wiki.

Register for YALSA’s March Webinar: Being a YA librarian is a multifaceted job! Today librarians are challenged in all areas of the library ranging from budgeting to collection development to working with social issues of teens. Join Mary Hastler, director of the Harford County Public Library in Maryland, to learn how to balance the many hats of a YA librarian in this March 17 webinar, 2 p.m. Eastern. Registration costs $39 for YALSA members, $49 for all other individuals or $195 for group registration (unlimited participants). Visit www.ala.org/yalsa/webinars to register and contact Eve Gaus, YALSA’s program officer for continuing education, with’  questions at egaus@ala.org.