One of the items on the agenda for the YALSA Board at Annual Conference in San Francisco is a discussion of YALS and how to make sure that the official journal of the association is in line with the findings and recommendations of YALSA's Future of Library Services for and with Teens: A Call to Action report. The Board document - under new business - presents some things for the YALSA Board to think about including:
- A revised function statement for YALS that focuses on the YALS Advisory Board having an active role in developing an editorial calendar for the journal and to make sure that YALSA's resources and initiatives are successfully highlighted in the publication.
- An updated task list for members of the YALS Advisory Board. Each YALSA committee and/or advisory board has a yearly task list. For 2015/16 the YALS Editorial Advisory Board (as outlined in the Board document) will work with the YALS editor to develop a new model for the publication including focal points for columns and features, as stated above work on an editorial calendar, and provide feedback on a new design for the journal.
- Changes to the format of YALS which includes re-thinking the recurring theme issues and encouraging authors of articles to also submit digital content for inclusion in the YALSAblog.
The YALS proposal for the Board is an action item which means that it is expected the Board will make a decision about the proposal at Annual Conference. If all or parts of the proposal are approved by the Board then it is expected that the changes will go into effect by early 2016.
YALSA Board meetings are open to all so if you will be at Annual Conference in San Francisco, feel free to stop by and hear what the Board is talking about. You can find the full Board agenda and supporting documents on the YALSA website.
Spring is a great time to highlight the Best of the Best, and ALA Midwinter brought forth the lists of award-winning titles and authors for 2012. If you haven’t already seen the winners for this year, visit the YALSA Booklists or check your copy of Young Adult Library Services for a complete listing. Of course, knowing which titles win doesn’t always mean you know what to do with the information. The following are some ways you can do more with these highlighted titles:
- Watch for yourself! Visit the streaming video feeds for the Youth Media Award Announcements or check out the Best Fiction for Young Adults Feedback Session that was covered live during ALA’s 2012 Midwinter conference. It’s like reliving the YA Oscars for yourself.
- Visit YALSA’s blog The Hub to learn of current YA literature trends and what libraries are doing to highlight authors and titles.
- Make special reusable bookmarks for award winning titles, like the ones I show here on the YALSA blog. It’s a fun and easy way to highlight titles that win various awards throughout the year. The template and instructions can also be easily changed and altered to incorporate other images.
- Consider having a virtual author visit through Skype. Authors love to connect with their readers, and technology has made this even easier. Sarah Thompson shares her Skype success on the YALSA blog. One useful list of authors is found at this Skype an Author website.
And don’t forget that it’s members like YOU that help determine what is chosen and how people know about it. It’s a great way to get involved, so
- Get your teens involved in choosing the YALSA “Teens’ Choice” award with the Teens’ Top Ten where teens from across the country nominate and then decide which books are tops for young adult readers for the year!
- Apply to be on a YALSA Task Force like the Awards and Booklist Marketing Task Force whose mission is to help YALSA raise awareness of its lists and awards, and to coordinate the implementation of a sustained, year-round effort by proting the lists to the library communtiy, create and disseminate resources for librarians and educators, and encourage teen interes in the lists through contests, promotions and collaborations. For more information on this and other Task Forces visit http://www.ala.org/yalsa/workingwithyalsa/tf
- Consider joining an Awards Selection Committee! As the YALSA website states, “Selection committee appointments are made in October each year by the YALSA president-elect … Selection committees are the most work-intensive type of committee in YALSA. Before you agree to volunteer, please be sure you know what will be required of you if you are appointed. Visit http://tinyurl.com/YALSAgetinvolved for more information.”
For more details on award winners and how to use YALSA resources to support your library’s work with these titles, visit current and past Spring issues of YALS. We love to talk about books in the spring!
There’s a profusion of pollen and awards in the air. It must be springtime. ‘Tis the season that YALSA rolls out the award announcements for the Printz, the Morris, the Edwards, the Odyssey, and more; the Spring issue of YALS is devoted to awards, the winners, and the speeches. But even so, in the flurry of awards that get announced in the late winter and early spring, it can still be easy to overlook a few. But don’t forget Alex!
The Alex Awards are named in honor of Margaret A. Edwards (who was known as Alex to her friends, hence the name). She’s probably best known for her book The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts: The Library and the Young Adult, a classic in the field of young adult/teen library services. (The chances are good that if you take a YA literature or youth services course while getting your library degree that you will hear mention of it—and rightly so.)
Each year, the Alex Awards committee chooses ten books written for adults that are judged to have particular appeal to young adults between the ages of 12 and 18. These books are fiction and non-fiction, well-known and not. They encompass pretty much every genre and also include literary fiction, and the tone can range from dark to side-clutchingly funny. The non-fiction titles have tended to skew towards adventure, history, and modern society.
Some books may be familiar to you, such as this year’s winner The Night Circus, and some may not be, such as another 2012 winner, Salvage the Bones. Here’s a link to the complete list of this year’s Alex Awards. And while you’re there, take some time to go back through the older Alex lists. You’ll find a mixture of now-classic crossovers such as Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, Dianne Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale, and Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. (A small piece of trivia: Neil Gaiman is the only author—-so far-—to make the list twice: in 2000 for Stardust and in 2006 for Anansi Boys.)
So how can you use the Alex Awards?
1. For some of your more advanced, curious, or sophisticated teen readers, who may be more challenging to do readers’ advisory for, these awards are a boon. The Alex titles are a rich source of interesting and more complex reading material, which is also still emotionally appealing and accessible to teen readers.
2. Don’t forget to add them to your teen booklists (print or digital). I usually include a section of related or crossover adult titles at the end of my teen booklists and the Alex lists are an excellent place to start.
3. Familiarize yourself with them in the name of readers’ advisory and collection development. I always make a point of taking a look at all of the Alex Award winners and also checking to see if my system owns copies (and if so, how many). The winning writers may have other titles that would make good recommendations or read-alikes that would have teen appeal as well. Crossing teen and adult readers over into each other’s sections is always fun regardless of the direction. (And don’t forget that these still make excellent suggestions for adult readers, too.)
4. Add some more books to your own towering stack of books to be read. I try to read several of the Alex winners every year and have been introduced to titles and authors I might not have come across otherwise. And I’ve read many books that I’ve loved and still recommend to friends, family, and patrons whenever the opportunity presents itself. (Soulless, Persepolis, The Eyre Affair, Gil’s All-Fright Diner, The Spellman Files, and The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, to name a just a few.)
Several of this year’s winners are on my personal summer reading list. So if you’re not sure where to begin in adult fiction these days or you’ve simply enjoyed as man
As the chair of the inaugural YALSA Writing Award Jury, I am proud to announce the four outstanding pieces of writing contributed by YALSA members last year. After receiving a shortlist of nominations from the respective publications’ editors and managers, our committee carefully considered each of the article’s merits to select the winners. Without further ado, here are the winning articles:
- Sarah Ludwig for best article in the previous volume of Young Adult Library Services, for “Teen Tech Camp” (Vol. 9, Number 2). Sarah wrote an account of a three-day tech workshop at her library, including details about the planning process and the lessons themselves and a summary of what worked and what didn’t.
- Casey H. Rawson for best article in the previous volume of The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults for “Are All Lists Created Equal? Diversity in Award-Winning and Bestselling Young Adult Fiction” (Vol. 1, Number 3: Spring). Casey examined diversity in books for teens along a variety of factors compared to the make-up of the U.S. population, including race/nationality, religion, family status, sexual orientation, and disabilities.
- Linda Braun for best post on the YALSABlog between Dec. 1, 2010, and Nov. 30, 2011, for “The Internet IS a Toaster.” Linda argues that librarians need to consider more than just the mere presence of technology as a draw for teens, but instead should think about new ways to market the services surrounding it.
- Maria Kramer for best post on The Hub between Dec. 1, 2010, and Nov. 30, 2011, for “In Which Our Author Tips Her Cog-Bedecked Top Hat to Steampunk.” Maria introduces readers to the wide world of steampunk literature and beyond in an entertaining and humorous fashion.
We encourage you to read the winning articles and congratulate the winning authors. The winners for the journals will each receive $500, due to the more extensive nature of their work. The winners for the blog posts will each receive $200. All winners will receive a plaque and be recognized at YALSA’s Membership Meeting at the ALA Annual Conference this summer in Anaheim, Calif. Of course, there were plenty of excellent contributions during the year from others, so don’t forget to browse through each publication’s archives for articles covering a diverse range of topics.
The YALSA Writing Award eligiblity period runs from Dec. 1 to Nov. 30 for the blogs and for the current volume year for the journals. Winners are selected based on the following criteria: applicability to a variety of library settings, originality of ideas, timeliness, relevance to young adult librarianship, persuasiveness of arguments, quality of writing, clarity of presentation, and contribution to the YALSA membership. Winners must be YALSA members at the time of submission. If you want to be in the running for this fledgling award, start thinking about writing for one (or more!) of the YALSA publications in the coming months. See below for more information about getting started:
- YALS: Accepts manuscripts on an ongoing basis that showcase current research and practice relating to teen services and spotlight significant activities and programs of the division. See the author guidelines or contact the editor, Megan Honig
- JRLYA: Accepts manuscripts based on original qualitative or quantitative research, an innovative con
The holidays are fast approaching with Thanksgiving tomorrow, Hanukkah starting next week, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday just days away. As you plan your holiday shopping, think about including gifts from YALSA for your colleagues. In addition to books, YALSA offers gift memberships, subscriptions to Young Adult Library Services, and t-shirts, mugs, and other products at CafePress.com. Read on to find out how you can include YALSA on your gift list this year.
CafePress Products
Looking for fun, book-themed products for the readers you know? Then check out YALSA’s store at CafePress.com! Visit www.cafepress.com/yalsa and check out our t-shirts (with a variety of slogans and in a variety of styles), baby products, coffee mugs and other housewares, bumper stickers, ornaments, tote bags and much more. Pick up a t-shirt that says “YALSA: Telling You What to Put on Your Bookshelf Since 1957″ for your favorite co-worker or a tote bag that says “Well Read” for the bookworm in your family. You’ll find many other slogans and designs at the CafePress site. Your purchases support the Friends of YALSA. Price range: $3.49 to $41.39.
YALSA Books
In the past few years, YALSA’s catalog of professional materials has grown, with ten titles published since 2007! YALSA offers professional books on reading and booklists for teens (Best Books for Young Adults, 3rd Edition; The Official YALSA Awards Guidebook; Quick and Popular Reads for Teens; and Annotated Booklists for Every Teen Reader: The Best from the Experts at YALSA-BK), teen programming (Get Connected: Tech Programs for Teens; Excellence in Library Services to Young Adults, 5th Edition; Cool Teen Programs for under $100; and Multicultural Programs for Tweens and Teens); and teen service delivery (Risky Business: Taking and Managing Risks in Library Services for Teens and Young Adults Deserve the Best: YALSA’s Competencies in Action).
Help the teen or school librarian on your list grow professionally with any of these ten high-quality professional titles. YALSA members enjoy a 10% discount on all YALSA books. To learn more about each title and see ordering information, visit YALSA’s Books page. Price range (with 10% discount): $27 to $58.50.
YALSA Gift Membership
Looking for a gift for a LIS grad student you know or perhaps a new colleague? Give the gift of innovation and inspiration – give YALSA membership! You can buy a gift membership for a new member or offer a renewal for
