Ready to Read?

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There’s just one week left to submit volunteer forms for the following YALSA committees and taskforces:

Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults
Best Fiction for Young Adults
Fabulous Films for Young Adults
Great Graphic Novels for Teens
Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults
Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
Alex Award
Morris Award
Odyssey Award
Outstanding Books for the College Bound
2014 Midwinter Marketing & Local Arrangements Taskforce
2014 Midwinter Paper Presentation Planning Taskforce
Readers’ Choice List Taskforce

Please see my previous post for the nitty gritty (http://bit.ly/SngekL) and feel free to contact me with any questions at shannon.peterson@gmail.com.

Thank you!

 

On YALSA Award Winners and Ebooks

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In the spring issue of YALS, you’ll find an easy-to-reference listing of all the YALSA award winners and book and media lists announced at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. Since ebooks are on the rise, I thought I’d take a look at which of the winners are currently available as ebooks and which are available for libraries on OverDrive.

Counting the winners and honors of the awards (except for Odyssey) and the top ten books on the Best Fiction, Quick Picks, and Popular Paperback lists, we end up with 50 unique titles. Of those, 37 are available as ebooks that can be purchased through the usual channels including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Google Books. The only titles that aren’t available electronically are non-fiction titles, graphic novels, and older fiction titles. Of the 37 ebooks, 20 are available for libraries to lend in OverDrive, according to their search engine.

As the ebook market continues to grow, I expect we will see more backlist titles become available, while full-color ereaders and tablet computers will allow graphic-intensive books to be offered electronically. Whether or not more ebooks will be available for library lending, however, remains to be seen. I hope that next year, more of the award-winning and noteworthy books honored by YALSA will be available to as many readers as possible in their desired reading format. Read More →

Get involved! YALSA Seeks Volunteers for Selection Committees, Award Committees and Taskforces!

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This fall, YALSA will be making appointments to the following selection committees and taskforces! Put your passion for young adult literature to work! If you have experience in evaluating and selecting young adult materials, as well as time to volunteer your skills, please consider serving on a YALSA selection committee. The committees and taskforces are:

  • Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults
  • Best Fiction for Young Adults
  • Fabulous Films for Young Adults
  • Great Graphic Novels for Teens
  • Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults
  • Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
  • Great Graphic Novels for Teens
  • Alex Award
  • Morris Award
  • Odyssey Award
  • 2013 Midwinter Marketing & Local Arrangements Taskforce
  • 2013 Midwinter Paper Presentation Planning Taskforce
  • Readers’ Choice List Taskforce Read More →

Tips for Selection Committee Chairs

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Discussions about books can get heated, passionate and intense. As chair of a YALSA selection committee, your task is to create an environment that allows for the passionate expression and sharing of viewpoints, keep on topic/focus and remain professional. When all viewpoints are considered and respected the product is a quality list, and members enjoy their service and want to keep volunteering!

Think about these meetings needing four components that build upon one another: Getting acquainted, building relationships, addressing issues, and taking action. If the first two are not in place it will be more difficult to address the issues successfully and the final action taken on the list may not be as cohesive. If a little more time is spent on the first two, then there is less likelihood of getting bogged down, personal rants/attacks, etc when the discussion gets heated. If all four components are working the group will feel wonderful and the product will be superb.

Read More →

Quick Picks Part Deux

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Another day, another set of books to talk about for inclusion on the 2007 Quick Picks List. Discussion was passionate and good natured. We are moving through these nominations in good time.

A quick tour of the exhibits yielded too many books to carry confortably. I hope that I can fit them all in my bag to take home to readers.

Tomorrow morning is the big press conference. I hope all YALSA members will be tuned in to hear about the awards via the web cast. I noticed that, once again, the YALSA awards are being ignored by the TODAY show. Begin writing now to NBC to decry their lack of interest in awards that could very well help leave fewer children behind!

Posted by Teri Lesesne

Quick Picks

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So, the incredibly talented and newly coiffed Sarah Couri got the first installment of the Quick Picks Committee off to a roaring start. By 4 we had adjourned for the day and moved on to reading some of the books we had not finished quite yet. The discussion was brisk and it seemed that the committee had few books where they was any real divergence of opinion. I think after 3 years (for me and some other members, it is our final year), we almost have a shorthand about how the books have fared with us and with our relucant readers.

Question to those of you perusing this blog: how do you use the QP Lists? Are there some types of books that seem to go over particularly well with your reluctant readers? Do you have what we call niche or “rut” readers who will read only manga or only horror?

Posted by Teri Lesesne

Still working in San Antonio

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Posted by Teri Lesesne

Though the exhibit halls look like ghost towns, and many participants are now home and busily unpacking their ARCS from their overstuffed luggage, some work still remains for the folks on various YALSA Committees. My roomie and I head off shortly for the final meeting of the Quick Picks List for 2006. Today we cast our final votes for the books, write annotations to go along with the titles, and settle on our Top Ten Books.

Other committees are meeting as well so that soon members can access BBYA and Notable and other important collection development lists. Of course, YALSA officers and Board Members are still meeting to plan for New Orleans and beyond. Get involved and see how it all works behind the scenes at ALA and YALSA.

Got reluctant readers?

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Posted by Teri Lesesne

The Quick Picks Committee has been busy here at midwinter. With hundreds of nominated titles to consider, our fearless leader, Jamie Watson, has kept us on task as we talk about the reaction of our readers to the books. Of course, we also insert our own thoughts and feelings into the proceedings as each member of the committee has also read each nominated title. The meetings are open to the conference participants who are encouraged to talk about any of the titles they have seen reluctant readers gravitate toward or reject. Tomorrow we will cast our votes for each book, write annotations for the titles, and begin thinking of which books we will nominate for the 2007 list.