Tell Your Librarian You Love Them
This Valentine’s Day, have your teens, parents, children and library supporters flood federal elected officials’ district offices with Valentines that express love for your library and its staff and ask for support for important legislation.
The ALA Youth Divisions – AASL, ALSC and YALSA – are sending out a call to action to library workers to have teens, children, parents and library supporters in their community send “I Love My Teen Services Librarian†or “I Love My School Librarian†Valentine cards to their U.S. Senators and Representatives, and to ask their elected officials to co-sponsor the SKILLS Act &/or support LSTA funding for libraries.
Learn more on how to participate at the I Love My Librarian Campaign Wiki.
Great Stories Club Applications Due Next Week!
Apply by February 15 for a Great Stories Club program grant!
The Great Stories CLUB (Connecting Libraries, Underserved teens, and Books) is organized by the American Library Association Public Programs Office (PPO), in cooperation with YALSA. Major funding for the Great Stories CLUB has been provided by Oprah’s Angel Network.
Connect with hard-to-reach, underserved teens by conducting a Great Stories Club reading and discussion program in your library. All libraries located within or working in partnership with facilities serving troubled teens are eligible to apply.
For a list of the titles included, guidelines and the online application, visit www.ala.org/greatstories. You may also wish to review the Great Stories Club Resource Guide posted on this site as you plan your library’s application.
With questions, please contact the ALA Public Programs Office, publicprograms@ala.org.
Be A 2008-2009 Spectrum Scholar!
Starting in fiscal year 2008, YALSA will support one Spectrum Scholar! Applications for 2008-2009 scholars are due at ALA by March 1. To learn more about requirements and how to apply, visit the Spectrum Web site!
Established in 1997, the Spectrum Scholarship Program is ALA’s national diversity and recruitment effort designed to address the specific issue of under-representation of critically needed ethnic librarians within the profession while serving as a model for ways to bring attention to larger diversity issues in the future.
Want to Get Involved? Join a YALSA Process Committee!
President Elect Sarah Cornish Debraski will begin appointing process committees (such as Teen Read Week, Intellectual Freedom, YA Galley and 25 others) and award juries (such as the BWI/YALSA Collection Development Grant and six others) this spring. So if you want to get involved, make sure to fill out a Committee Volunteer Form and submit it to the YALSA Office by March 1.
To learn more about YALSA committees, juries, and task forces, check out the committee descriptions or reread a few helpful blog posts about this very topic.
Early Registration & Housing for Annual
Annual Conference is just four months away! Make your plans to join us in Anaheim. Registration and housing for ALA Annual Conference 2008 is now open; for the best pricing, register by March 7.
What does YALSA have planned for Annual? Plenty! We’ll offer two preconferences—Got Tweens? Serving Younger Teens and Tweens and Turn Teens on to Reading through Booktalks—as well as the Edwards Award Luncheon, the Printz Awards Reception, and the Young Adult Authors Coffee Clatch. Find out about our special events at the Special Events page at ALA’s Annual Conference Web site.
Save the Date for the First Young Adult Literature Symposium
YALSA’s first biennial Young Adult Literature Symposium, How We Read Now, will be Nov. 7-9 in Nashville! Details on registration and more will be posted later, but you can find out the program slate now (and see the papers to be presented) by visiting the Young Adult Literature Symposium Web site.
