Council & ALA Connect

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Some interesting discussion going on over on the ALA Council email list. Raise your hand if you don’t know what Council is….

Ah, I thought so.

Council is one of the ALA über-committees, responsible for policy and governance for the entire association. Think of it like Congress…there are elected representatives from every chapter, division, round table, and whatnot. I’m an at-large Councilor, nearing the end of my three year term. Not much YALSA representation on Council at the moment, so you should think about running.

At the moment, Councilors are discussing ALA Connect on the listserv. Some are trying it out, posting discussions there. Some contend that it’s better to keep discussion all in one place, rather than scattered around in a bunch of places where you have to go look for it.

Read More →

Getting Involved – Not Just About YALSA

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Recently I’ve written posts about the YALSA committee appointment process and the value of participating in YALSA via its various committees.’  Of course that involvement is essential to the success of YALSA. Along with involvement in the Division, it’s also important for YALSA members to participate in the larger ALA governance and ALA community.’  One way to do that is to get your name on the ballot to run for ALA Council.

Why would you want to do that? The video below provides some good reasons. Read More →

It Takes Lots of Talk to Fill a Committee

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As I’ve written before, it’s process committee appointment time. That doesn’t mean that I sit around reading through forms and match volunteers with committees. While that’s a part of the process, I’m also having phone conversations with current chairs of process committees in order to better understand the work of each committee, what skills the committee chair needs to bring to the committee, and to learn about the skills needed by committee members.

As a result, I’m doing a lot of talking. But, the committee chairs are also doing a lot of talking and it’s great.’  Read More →

It’s That Time Again

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Yes, it’s true, and maybe hard to believe, but it’s time again for me to take on one of my roles as YALSA Vice-President/President-Elect, and remind people to fill out committee volunteer forms. This winter and spring I’ll be appointing members to YALSA’s process committees.

The purpose of YALSA process committees is:

…to help carry out the business of the association by handling matters such as membership recruitment, planning Teen Read Week, local arrangements at conferences, and much more.’  If you have not served on a committee before, process committees are where you can get your start.’  Thirty-three percent of the members of a process committee can be virtual. Read More →

Who Knew? How Does That Work? A Lesson in Demystification!

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A few weeks ago I blogged about getting ready to start the committee appointment process for YALSA. One of the things I get to do as Vice President/President-Elect is appoint people to committees. While I’ve been an active member of YALSA for over a decade, and, while I’ve served on a few committees, the appointment process is totally new to me.’  And in talking to a variety of people I’ve realized that the appointment process is probably pretty confusing to lots of people. This blog post is therefore my attempt at YALSA Appointments 101. Read More →

Board Actions at Annual 2008

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YALSA’s Board of Directors was hard at work at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference. Here are some of the key decisions the Board made that I thought members would be interested in:

  • Strategic Plan: The Board adopted a new strategic plan, with 5 goal areas: membership engagement & retention, research, advocacy, continuing education and marketing. You can read the full plan
  • Research: The Board voted to establish an online research journal and directed YALSA’s Research Committee to develop the mission and goals for the journal as well as the refereeing process.
  • Mentoring: The Board voted to establish a taskforce to develop guidelines for implementing a pilot round of a mentoring program that includes a reverse mentoring component and best practices from other mentoring projects, to be implementing in the 2010 fiscal year.

    • Read More →

President’s Post

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Whew! What a busy, exciting, thoughtful, fun, educational conference! It definitely takes a few days to settle back into “real life” after a conference.’  My head is always spinning with new ideas, my mind is filled with thoughts of people I’ve met and conversations we’ve had, and my imagination has undoubtedly been captured by lots of new books. Read More →

Poster Session Proposals

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The Technology for Young Adults Committee is still accepting proposals for the Teens & Technology Poster Session at the ALA Annual Conference in June-July 2008 through January. For more information, visit here. If you have questions, contact Kelly Tyler, Technology for Young Adults Committee Chair: kellyts at mac.com.

Posted by Kelly Czarnecki

Outreach to Young Adults with Special Needs Committee

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During the all committee meeting, I attended the Outreach meeting. The purpose of this committee is:

To address the needs of young adults who do not or cannot use the library because of socioeconomic, legal, educational, or physical factors.

More information can be found here.
Victoria Vogal of the Rocky River Public Library is the incoming chair. Lisa Youngblood from the Harker Heights Public Library will continue to be involved in many initiatives of the group and was the former chair who dynamically led the committee previously.

The committee is preparing for a program in Annaheim that will address using the net as outreach to teens; specifically those that are unable to get to the library. We were also asked to serve as a resource for the Department of Library and Information Studies in Buffalo, NY for a project an Assistant Professor is working on.
Stay tuned to the committee and share what your committee is doing.

Posted by Kelly Czarnecki

Second Life Best Practices in Education

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Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us Second Life’s first conference for Best Practices in Education was a great success. Presenters such as Kathy Schrock, Administrator for Technology in MA, (Kathy Drybaugh in sl) showed the audience some great places to support teaching and learning, Peg Sheehy, Instructional Technology Facilitator, in New York, (Maggie Marat in sl) shared examples of her island on the teen grid where over 400 eighth graders are involved in such projects as creating a mock trial after reading Of Mice and Men. Barry Joseph with Global Kids in New York, (globalKids Bixby in sl) talked about working with teens in real life and second life to raise awareness on global issues. The conference also had poster sessions, exhibit spaces for vendors and non-profits and a wide range of presenters using different paradigms of education to influence their work in second life. Archives of key presentations available here soon. Also, check out the blog or wiki.

Add your blog in the comments if you attended the conference. Great post here about Kathy Schrock and Lisa Perez, (Elaine Tulip in sl) with the Chicago Public Schools.

Also, The University of Illinois has partnered with the Alliance Second Life Library to offer Virtual World Librarianship courses which started last week.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usFree Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Posted by Kelly Czarnecki