News from New Literacies Online Course

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Posted by Linda W. Braun

This is the first week of YALSA’s online course – New Literacies for Young Adults. We started on Monday and the full class – 28 students in all – has been discussing, creating, and participating. As I’ve been teaching the class and communicating with students, I’ve been thinking a lot about all the reading and writing required in order to participate in anything online. For example, this week one of the topics up for discussion is My Space. Students in the class have been discussing how to setup My Space accounts, troubleshooting My Space glitches, and considering how and why community environments like My Space appeal to teenagers. In order to do that we’ve all be reading and writing constantly.

At the same time I’ve been thinking about all of the new cool sites I keep finding out about. These include, Pandora which is a very interesting music streaming site and Newsvine which is a site that aggregates news and gives members the chance to write articles for the site.

No matter where I turn to look at technology that teens and adults use, I’m bombarded with text and I’m given the chance to write down my own ideas about the resource I’m checking out. Literacy is not a thing of the past, that’s for sure. The ways we read and write might change, but the actual act of reading and writing live on stronger than ever – I would say.

Candidate Forum for President-Elect

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Posted by Amy Alessio

Let’s begin by asking both of our candidates for President-Elect, Paula Brehm-Heeger and Allen Nichols about their experience within YALSA and ALA. Please tell readers about what positions you have held in our organization and in the larger ALA structure.

Then follow that up by letting readers know which of those positions was your favorite and why, as well as which gave you the most important skills to use as YALSA President and why.

Welcome to the Elections Section

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Posted by Amy Alessio

Welcome to the YALSA Elections blog! Only about 15% of members vote in our annual elections, yet decisions affect everyone. So please use this forum as a chance to learn about candidates and issues for the spring ballot.

As moderator of this section of the blog, I will be posting questions for the President Elect category, then other elected positions and finally about issues to go on the ballot. The candidates will post their responses to these questions. YALSA members are also welcome to follow up on their responses with further questions.

We encourage lively discussion and debate as appropriate to the topic, but of course no personal comments or attacks will be allowed.

BBYA: Kids get a chance to share their perspectives on books

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Richie Partington wrote a wonderful article about a group of kids from Petaluma California who travelled to San Antonio to share their observations about the books they read with the BBYA Committee. Sometimes it is easy to lose the teen perspective in all of the lists. However, anyone who has attended the BBYA sessions with kids present know that teens are quick to share their responses to the books, both positive and negative.

As a side note, the Quick Picks Committee elicits responses from reluctant readers as books are considered for nomination. If you want to see what books reluctant readers found engaging enough to read, visit the QP site: http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/quickpicks/06qp.htm

Posted by Teri Lesesne

Celebrating the winners

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» YALSA Blog #John Gr […]”>Tweet

Of course the Awards Press Conference is an incredible event. However, the ripples after the awards are announced provide plenty of drama as well. You can see John Green’s reactions to hearing his book, LOOKING FOR ALASKA, won the Printz Award at his blog site. John was walking with his family in New York when he received the phone call from Michael Cart and the Printz Committee. How wonderful it is to be able to see the reaction–almost like being UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL.

Posted by Teri Lesesne

The Way Teens Find Information

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Posted by Linda W. Braun

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking a lot about Rupert Murdoch and what he said about searching when he bought the company that owns My Space. (You can check out Murdoch’s My Space space.) At that time Murdoch was quoted as saying that teens use their online social networks to find information instead of going to search engines – like Google.

Then yesterday I listened to the Diggnation podcast. The podcast hosts talked about Yahoo! While Yahoo! is not the number one search engine or search tool of choice for lots of people, Yahoo! has recently purchased several technologies (Flickr for example.) that help place them in the future as the social networking search tool of choice.

The Diggnation hosts talked about how in the not so distant future more and more people are going to want to find information that others have already vetted in some way. For example, perhaps a teen wants to find information on a topic of either personal or academic interest. The teen might do a search on Yahoo! or Google and get a results list that isn’t organized within a relevant framework for the teen looking for the information. In this case what I mean by relevant is that the results have been “reviewed” by others with like interests and needs – family, friends, and so on.

This reminded me of research cited in Mary K. Chelton and Colleen Cool’s book Youth Information Seeking Behavior. In the final chapter on drug related information seeking behaviors of adolescent girls, it is noted that friends are often the first information gathering source for these teenagers.

Within the online search framework that would then mean that teens would want to find resources from within their online social networks. Those are people who they choose to connect with via My Space, Live Journal, 43 Things, and so on. If this is the search wave of today and the near future can librarians jump onto the wave with their websites and library catalogs? What will it take to do that?

YALSA New Orleans Update

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Posted by Meg Canada
I promised a follow-up from the Midwinter All-Committee Meeting. Here are Terry Young’s Updates from the Local Arrangements Committee Chair for our 2006 Annual Meeting.

What can you expect to find in New Orleans for ALA annual?

Well, I can guarantee: heat, humidity, sex, and alcohol will be as plentiful as ever.

As of today it’s only been 3.5 months since power was restored and there has been a lot of progress. Most of the major hotels are open. Now this is a plus because if they suffered damage due to water or looting or broken windows…well, you will have new carpets, furniture, mattresses, etc.

The areas of the city that are used by tourists and convention goers: the French Quarter, downtown CBD, and the convention center area were not flooded. Katrina evacuees who sought shelter in the convention center were in halls A and B (totally refurbished), ALA will be using Halls F, G, H, I, and J.

The streetcars are running on the riverfront and Canal St…but sadly not St Charles avenue (buses only) as the overhead lines were destroyed.

The riverboat Natchez is up and running. Harrah’s Casino opens February 17th…and you know they wouldn’t open unless they could make money!!

Check to see if your favorite restaurant is open:
01/27/06) The Dept of Health and Hospitals has given us new recertification lists for businesses that sell food in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes. As per these latest numbers, 60% of Jefferson Parish retail food establishments, 24% for Orleans Parish, and 35% total metro establishments have been recertified to open.
Click here for an updated list for Orleans Parish East Bank. (01/25)
Click here for an updated list for Orleans Parish West Bank. (01/25)
Click here for an updated list of Jefferson Parish East Bank. (01/25)
Click here for an updated list of Jefferson Parish West Bank. (01/25)

What can you expect: the city operates at a slower pace…you may have to carry your luggage to your room, room service has very limited hours, most restaurants have shorter hours and in some cases limited menus. The problem is lack of workers. So with a little patience all will be fine. You have to remember that there is still 5 months until conference, and more and more is happening everyday. The convention business resumes in April 2006 and the Jazz & Heritage Festival will continue.

Be sure to check out ALA FAQ’s for New Orleans at:
http://www.ala.org/ala/eventsandconferencesb/annual/2006a/nofaq.htm
Come come on down…you’ll love New Orleans…and she’ll love you right back!

Terry Young
Bourbon St. resident in the French Quarter
YALSA Local Arrangements Chair

RSS Feeds

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Posted by Linda W. Braun

If you are a regular reader of this blog you might want to use the RSS feeds to keep up with new posts and comments. If you haven’t used RSS feeds before this is a perfect opportunity to get started with them. You could find that feeds help you keep up with what’s happening on topics in which you are interested. I subscribe to lots of technology and library feeds and through them I quickly and easily find out about new and interesting developments in those fields.

Library websites incorporate RSS feeds so users get information about what’s happening in the library pushed to them. Database vendors are beginning to integrate RSS. With RSS enabled databases, researchers get notified when new information is added to the database on a specific research topic.

To subscribe to feeds you need a feed reader – you can use something that’s web-based or a special piece of software. Find out more about RSS and how you can use it read Will Richardson’s RSS Quick Start Guide for Educators.

Institute & Gaming Night Photos

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Posted by Linda W. Braun

There are some great photos that Mary Hastler took on Friday during the Institute and the gaming night. You can see them on Flickr.

Don’t miss the YALSA President and the Financial Officer on the DDR pads. The biggest crowd seemed to always be at Karaoke and the teens in attendance gravitated to Guitar Hero all evening.

Social Networking

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Posted by Linda W. Braun

This week the Pew Internet in American Life Project came out with a report on the impact of technology on social networks. While the report isn’t specifically about teens, there are several topics within the document that relate to the way teens use technology and what they will expect from technology when they become adults.

The report describes two types of networks/ties. They are:

Core Ties: These are the people in Americans’ social networks with whom they have very close relationships — the people to whom Americans turn to discuss important matters, with whom they are in frequent contact, or from whom they seek help. This approach captures three key dimensions of relationship strength — emotional intimacy, contact, and the availability of social network capital.

Significant Ties: These are the people outside that ring of “core ties” in Americans’ social networks, who are somewhat closely connected. They are the ones with whom Americans to a lesser extent discuss important matters, are in less frequent contact, and are less apt to seek help. They may do some or all of these things, but to a lesser extent. Nevertheless, although significant ties are weaker than core ties, they are more than acquaintances, and they can become important players at times as people access their networks to get help or advice.

As I read this I thought about how teens use websites like My Space, along with blogs, to build and support their social networks. Do teens think about the differences within the social networks they build? I’m not sure they could articulate differences, but I bet they use online tools in different ways in order to create core and significant ties.