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From Stephanie Kuenn, Communications Specialist, YALSA:

Happy Teen Read Week, everyone!

Help YALSA celebrate Teen Read Week! We need your help:

*Start by making sure your teens vote for the Teens' Top Ten at www.ala.org/teenstopten

*Ask the teens you serve to visit the Teen Read Week Web site at www.ala.org/teenread and vote on next year's theme

*Send your teens to SmartGirl.org to take the annual Teen Read Week survey about teen reading habits at http://www.smartgirl.org/

*Go to the Teen Read Week Wiki at http://wikis.ala.org/yalsa/index.php/Teen_Read_Week and add your programs to our list

*Check out I Love Libraries, http://www.ilovelibraries.org/, which is highlighting Teen Read Week

*At the end of the week, enter our Win a Visit from Tiffany Trent contest and tell us all about your fabulous celebration! Rules and application are at
http://ala.org/ala/yalsa/teenreading/trw/trw2007/trw07contest.htm.

Teen Read Week is coming up in October; many of you have read about the inspired teaming up of Readergirlz and YALSA, with their 31 Flavorites. And I want to blog a bit more about TRW and Readergirlz and YALSA, but first, I wanted to explain a bit more about Teen Read Week. It's sponsored by YALSA (the YA Section of ALA); it's October 14 to 20, 2007.

Why Teen Read Week? Well, as the YALSA website says, "Teen Read Week is a national literacy initiative aimed at teens, their parents, librarians, educators, booksellers and other concerned adults. It began in 1998 and is celebrated the third week in October."

Here's the thing; as you can see by the Readergirlz initiative, it's not just YALSA saying "Teen Read Week." YALSA does a ton of stuff connected with this; they get sponsors and collaborate with organizations; they promote teens, reading, and YA lit to the world at large, using TRW as a focal point; they put together a ton of resources, including a wiki with book lists and program ideas, sample press releases and a ton of other goodies).

While TRW is the third week of October, registration for TRW is NOW and ends September 17th. And the reason I'm posting about TRW is as a reminder to go and register! (And yes, I'm usually so bad at remembering these dates that it wasn't until I heard from Stephanie Kuenn at YALSA, reminding me that the registration deadline was fast approaching, that I registered.)

Registration is here. It's free; it's easy; and no, you don't have to be a member of ALA or YALSA in order to register. And you don't have to be a librarian : "Teen Read Week is a national literacy initiative aimed at teens, their parents, librarians, educators, booksellers and other concerned adults. If you would like to participate, just register."

So can nonlibrarians register? YES! When you go to register, title and library are optional; but, to show YALSA blogger involvement, why not put down "blogger" as title and your blog & URL in the library box?

Why register? I mean, it's not like you have to in order to participate or to use the resources for TRW that are at the YALSA site.

To quote from the YALSA website again, "YALSA is a non profit organization that depends on its members for support. By registering, you are letting us know that teen literacy is a concern and you are willing to do something about it! By registering, you are telling YALSA that this program is worthwhile, and we will continue to sponsor the week."

In other words, YALSA (like any other organization) cannot just say "we had TRW"; they need numbers and feedback to say, "it was a success." So, unless you officially register, you're not in the headcount, as it were, so you may as well be invisible. Too many invisible participants and suddenly TRW doesn't look successful, even if it is. So please; register!

Cross posted at Pop Goes the Library.