Now that my post-ALA buzz is beginning to wear off and I’ve reread my pre-ALA blog post, I think it’s time to share the joy that was the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Washington D.C.

With my inner fangirl bouncing off the walls of my brain, I created a list of the top ten things I hoped to tell you about doing in this post. So, without further ado, here is my list of the ten things that I DID do while at ALA 2010.

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It was just last week when Libba Bray accepted the Printz Award and spoke alongside honor book authors John Barnes, Deborah Heiligman, Adam Rapp and Rick Yancey at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC.

If you want to relive their speeches or if you weren’t able to make it, click through the jump to see video of all of the winning authors. Thanks to Daniel Krauss of Booklist for creating the videos!

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Risky Business

Please feel free to forward this report to others whom you think are interested

The mission of the Young Adult Library Services Association is to advocate, promote and strengthen service to young adults as part of the continuum of total library service, and to support those who provide service to this population.

Mission Moment
How Recent YALSA Activities Support the Association’s Mission and Strategic Plan

At their Annual Conference meetings the YALSA Board discussed recommendations, made by an ad hoc committee of the Board, related to the use of William C. Morris Endowment funds. Following their discussions, the Board voted that over the next three years the Association would use the funds to support Teen Read Week in three areas that connect to the YALSA strategic plan. These three areas are: research, marketing, and member recruitment and engagement. By supporting these areas with Morris funds, not only does YALSA support its mission and strategic plan, the Association also helps librarians to participate actively and successfully in Teen Read Week. The document discussed by the Board which led to their vote is available on the YALSA website.
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Now that the live session is over, you can replay the live blog by clicking on the viewer window below. We streamed live video for a portion of the teen feedback session, so be sure to check that out now that it’s archived.

Want to hear what teens have to say about the nominated titles for our very first Best Fiction for Young Adults list? Check out the live blog! As we did at Midwinter in Boston, we’ll be streaming live video of the teens, pulling tweets, and giving real-time coverage of all the action. The session will open at 1:30 EST and close shortly after the feedback session ends at 3:30. If you can’t join us in real time, you can also watch a replay of the live blog.

There are several ways you can participate. If you’d like to log in through Facebook or Twitter, your comments will be published using your profile photo. If you’d like us to publish your tweets without logging in, you can leave your Twitter username in the comments here (warning: all your tweets will be published while the live blog is running!) or just use the hashtags #yalsa and/or #bfya when you tweet. You can also join the live blog by clicking on the viewer window that will be posted here.

A few months ago I wrote about the Technology for Young Adults Committee transitioning to the Teens & Technology Interest Group.’  One of our final actions as a committee has been to prepare an awesome session about booktrailers and video for Annual. We hope you’ll join us for a session that will feature best practices for creating and promoting booktrailers and video to highlight collections, programs, and services for teens.’  The rockstar panelists include:

Simone Elkeles, author of Rules of Attraction and Perfect Chemistry, will participate.’  Her website features several of her trailers.

Buffy Hamilton, aka The Unquiet Librarian, is a media specialist/teacher-librarian at Creekview High School’  (GA). She will talk about transliteracy and using video with teens. Be sure to check out her shoes at the panel, as she promised via Twitter to showcase “how you can wear hot and cute shoes that are comfy.”

Joy Millam, District Library Coordinator/Teacher Librarian at Valencia High School (CA), has been doing book trailers with teens for more than two years.’  Her wiki, Book Talks and More,’  has details on how to get started, including a presentation on Booktrailer Basics.

Sonia Nash, Online Producer for Random House Children’s Books, will round out the session by speaking about booktrailers from a publisher perspective.

Staci Terrell, Teen Services Librarian at Anderson Public Library (IN), will share how she created a booktrailer how-to program for teens called Techie Tuesdays.

Jennifer Wooten, Teen Services Librarian Kings County Library System (WA), will discuss video. Last summer, Wooten wrote an article for School Library Journal:’  Flipped!: Want to get teens excited about summer reading? Just add video.

Finally, Sarah Ludwig, Head of Teen and Technology Services at Darien Library (CT), will moderate this talent-packed panel.

Lights! Camera! Booktrailers!
Saturday, June 26, 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Washington Convention Center’  147A

We’ll also be meeting as a group during the YALSA All-Committee session on Saturday morning, 10:30am-12 (WCC 207A/B). Come check out the Teens & Technology Interest Group, as well as many other committees and groups. It’s a great way to get involved and meet people, as well as share ideas.

Heading to ALA Annual in DC? Take time to celebrate the best in children’s & YA audiobooks at the Odyssey Award Celebration on Monday, June 28th from 4:00pm – 5:30pm, in the Washington Convention Center room 145B. This event is FREE with no ticket required. You’ll receive a goodie bag that contains a CD with clips of the winner & honor titles. Plus, there are wonderful FREE refreshments provided by the Audio Publishers Association so that you may mingle with the narrators after the presentation. And there’s plenty of time between the Odyssey Presentation and the Printz to grab dinner. So make Monday your day to celebrate with YALSA!’  *Please note that the date of the Odyssey Award Celebration had been incorrectly listed on a past ALA communication*

Here’s the official scoop:

Celebrate the spoken word at the 2010 Odyssey Award Presentation, featuring the 2010 Odyssey winner, Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken, written by Kate DiCamillo, narrated by Barbara Rosenblat, and produced by Live Oak Media.’  Three honor titles will also be recognized for their excellence in audiobook production for children and young adults.’ ‘  A reception sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association with light refreshments will follow the award presentations and program featuring narrators Dion Graham, Katherine Kellgren, and Barbara Rosenblat.

Even if you aren’t going to be in D.C. for Annual Conference you can participate in some of YALSA’s Conference activities. Here’s How:

  • Twitter will be a way in which many YALSA members and those attending teen related programs will keep others posted about Conference events and programs. Follow attendee Tweets by keeping track of the hashtags #ala10 and #yalsa during Conference.
  • Over the past year YALSA added liveblogging to the Association’s virtual conference opportunities. This Annual there will once again be liveblogging of a variety of programs and events. Read More →

As YALSA member Beth Gallaway mentioned in her comment on my post about getting involved in YALSA at Annual, just before Midwinter 2010 I wrote a YALSA Blog post highlighting the fact that YALSA is made up of a welcoming and friendly group of people.

photo of linda w braunAs Annual is just a week away, really it’s just a week away, I wanted to once again point out the welcoming and friendly nature of YALSA members and member leaders. As I mentioned in that previous blog post, sometimes YALSA members can seem like a very cliquey group. But, that cliquey look is really because many of us have had the opportunity to get to know each other over several years and are excited to be finally talking once more face-to-face. If you think about it, the way we ended up looking like a clique was that sometime in the past each one of us walked up to another one of us and started a conversation. It can be scary and intimidating to do that, but it’s well worth it. Read More →