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From the moment touching down at Logan airport it was a great Midwinter!

I’m excited to share some of my adventures from Midwinter a couple of weeks ago and update you on the ALSC Board’s work together in Boston.

Kicking things off on Thursday, I attended an Information Policy Workshop with our veep, Betsy Orsburn, and our Executive Director, Aimee Strittmatter. As one of the key elements of ALA’s Strategic Directions, learning more about this important area was very insightful and you can learn more about the day here.

Tips for advocating for Information Policy

Quick selfie with Betsy during a break at the Information Policy Workshop at Midwinter.

Friday began with the happy task of welcoming attendees to the 2016 Bill Morris Seminar: Book Evaluation Training, which is held every other year thanks to the generosity of the William C. Morris Endowment. The Morris Seminar provides mentoring in children’s media evaluation techniques, and I couldn’t be more grateful to this year’s spectacular co-chairs Deborah Taylor and Sylvia Vardell and to all of those who shared their experiences and wisdom with attendees, one of whom, Lisa Nowlain, shared her visual impressions in an earlier blog post.

With Ashley in East Boston. (Note the Babies Need Words Every Day poster and great interactive elements in the children’s room!) Photo by Branch Librarian Margaret Kelly

That afternoon I took the opportunity to visit some libraries in the area which I’d never been to before as part of my #ALSCtour. I really appreciate the expertise of my excellent tour guide, Ashley Waring from the Reading Public Library, as we visited the East Boston branch of Boston Public Library and the Watertown Free Public Library.

Fabulous mural in the Watertown children’s room by Craig Bostick (http://www.aquaboy.net/).

Photo credit: Aimee Strittmatter

Of course a major highlight was the Youth Media Awards, and I can assure you that it’s as fun to reveal the winners to the world as I always imagined it would be when I would practice in front of my mirror! And now that we all know which books and media were honored and you’re busy celebrating them with your kids, we look forward to also celebrating their creators and selection committees at Annual in Orlando in less than 5 months.

Photo credit: ALA

The ALSC Board held two meetings during Midwinter (#ALSCboard).

The 2015-216 ALSC Board (Photo credit: ALSC)

We discussed Summer Reading & Learning as a strategic mega-issue for our association, and are looking at how ALSC can help members even more with our important summer work. We established a task force to continue this exploration and I’m delighted that Board member Christine Caputo will lead this eager group’s work as chair. Our next Community Forum, to be held later this month, will an important opportunity to hear your thoughts on this issue.

We talked about how ALSC can more thoroughly integrate the concepts of Día into all of our work throughout the year, rather than limiting its focus to one specific day, and heard from Past President KT Horning about her request to enact a statute of limitations on the confidentiality of ALSC award committees. (A Board subcommittee will explore this further over the next couple of months.) We signed on to collaborate with the Black Caucus of ALA for their new and forthcoming Walter Dean Myers Annual Memorial Lecture and began discussions (continued here) on how ALSC can support REFORMA‘s Children in Crisis project, a true example of how library services can create better futures for kids.

We got a chance to meet our Emerging Leaders, heard from the Media Mentorship Award Task Force on their proposal for recognizing those using digital media with kids in innovative ways, and also looked closely again at the current landscape for app evaluation and recognition. I believe we are moving the needle forward in these areas–please stay tuned!

Our budget is healthy, with strong award seal sales and a greater attention to policing unauthorized use of our seals on editions of award winning titles published abroad; and the work of the Diversity Within ALSC Task Force continues. Finally, in the future, all of this work will happen using Roberts Rules of Order if an item to be placed on the spring ballot to bring ALSC’s parliamentary procedure bylaw into accordance with ALA’s is approved by members.

If you have any thoughts and/or questions on any of the above, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected], and tweets from the meeting can be founding using #alscboard.

And I would like to give a special congratulatory shout-out to our fantastic Executive Director, Aimee Strittmatter, on achieving the extremely prestigious designation of Certified Association Executive. Aimee is the first ALSC Executive Director to earn this highest ranking for association professionals and we couldn’t be prouder of her and more grateful for all she does. (Her Twitter handle isn’t @LibraryCrusader for nothing!)

The post A Magnificent Midwinter #alamw16 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

I went to ALA for the first time in several years last week. I don’t think I’ve been to ALA since the Think Tank has been in existence. It was a great setup. Conference was in Boston. I was giving a pre-conference. Part of my deal was that I’d get registration for the conference, and one night in a fancy hotel (and some $). It worked out great. Usually, I admit, I dislike workshops. I don’t like to be in them and I barely know how to give them. However, my feelings on this are not normative, so I tried to bring my education and my experience to an afternoon workshop for about twenty people and have some useful exercises and activities as well as some good discussion. I think it went well. My main self-critique was that I had made sure I had three hours of “stuff” for a three hour workshop and maybe didn’t leave enough time for people to just talk to each other. More blank spaces next time. You can read through my slides as well as see the handouts and exercises (and the image credits) at this URL: http://www.librarian.net/talks/llama16/. ALA had a conference app that encouraged you to upload your slides to the application so people could have them. Great idea in theory, but in reality I didn’t see any privacy policy and was a little leery of giving up my content so I uploaded a single slide with the URL to my actual slides. Hope people didn’t feel that it was too cheeky. A few other photos of my ALA trip are here. Thanks so much to everyone who came to the pre-conference and especially to LLAMA who invited me and took very good care of me. They were a joy to work with.

Aside from checking out great new titles, sitting in on book discussions, and listening to speakers, I had the opportunity to meet with the members of my virtual committee who were attending ALAMW too.  Bonus!

The ALSC Advocacy & Valuation Task Force is a two year task force focused on advocacy and valuation using outcome/output measurement.

One of our most shocking take-aways so far is that many members don’t know about or use the Everyday Advocacy website and newsletters, created specifically to help YOU with advocating for youth services.  Take a few minutes today to check out the important work Jenna Nemec-Loise is doing and participate in her January 5 challenge to set a 2016 advocacy goal for yourself.

The post ALSC helps YOU with advocacy #alamw16 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Everyone knows about ALSC committees like Newbery & Caldecott, but there is a galaxy of other committees full of dedicated librarians that make ALSC tick and support us all in our work.

Serving on a process committee like Membership, Grants Administration, or Organization and Bylaws provides opportunities to build relationships with other librarians, while also building leadership skills, looking at ALSC: The Big Picture, and guiding how ALSC operates and serves us all.

Not all of these groups require attending a conference, there are virtual committees too. These can be really excellent for finding mentors and building a librarian community if you’re feeling isolated.

Check out the roster of opportuntities on the ALSC Committees page & fill out your volunteer form today!  Join us!

The post ALSC Process & Program Committees May Not Be Glamorous on Monday Morning, but are Super Worthwhile #alamw16 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

How exciting to have Last Stop on Market Street  be awarded the Newbery Medal as well as a Caldecott Honor.  I remember this also happened with A Visit to William Blake’s Inn.

The post Youth Media Awards appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Did you know that ALSC has its own YouTube Channel?  Neither did I.  One of the themes of my year is exploring all the avenues ALSC uses to share information with its members and this is a fun one!  I heard about this today in a committee meeting and had to check it out.

The ALSC Channel has author and illustrator interviews, Newbery/Caldecott/Wilder acceptance speeches, and great information from members and leaders in ALSC.

The post Reconnect with your favorite authors on the ALSC YouTube Channel #alamw16 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

While browsing the exhibits at ALA Midwinter, I came upon the Harry Potter Alliance and its work on organizing youth to participate in National Library Legislative Day – mainly by creating local chapters in schools, libraries, youth centers, etc.. to enlist passionate readers in youth advocacy.  Of course, I also had to buy this wicked awesome (note my attempt at Boston lingo!) t-shirt:

These local chapters “serve as an access point for young people who are passionate about stories to become civically engaged and lead projects that improve their communities.” (thehpalliance.org)  The HPA envisions librarians being “most heavily involved in creating their chapters, planning the first few meetings, and identifying potential leaders among the young people in attendance.”

Are you as intrigued as I am? You can send questions via a virtual owl (HPA brilliant lingo!) to their Chapters Staff at [email protected] to learn more.

The post Harry Potter Alliance and Youth Advocacy appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Coming in October is the next book in Anderson’s series that began with CHAINS and FORGE. She spoke at a luncheon today about the inspirations for the books.  (Paraphrasing here) ‘Children need to know history, warts and all, in order to make the future better.’

The post ASHES by Laurie Halse Anderson appeared first on ALSC Blog.

I found myself circling the exhibits a few times while I was on the lookout for the ALA Joblist and Career Development Placement Center. Now, before you excitedly google my job, no I am not in the market, thank you very much. I love my library.

So why the placement center?

I wanted to take advantage of the amazing photography service. It’s been awhile since I have had an actual headshot taken, and let’s face it – sometimes that selfie just won’t cut it. So I found the placement center (it’s right near the post office on the exhibit floor), checked in at the desk, paid my $20 and headed over.

There were 2 professional photographers there and we took several shots. The photos will all be sent to me digitally as raw files so that I can filter them up to my heart’s delight!

This is a great opportunity, that I highly recommend. Good photos help your brand, allow consistency across social media platforms, and are super handy to send off when you need a bio for a speaking engagement. The photographers hours are today and tomorrow from 9am -5pm.

If you are not in the market for a headshot, the placement center also has resume review, on the fly mentoring, and career counseling.

Why not take advantage of these great services?

The post Taking Advantage of the Resources at #alamw16 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Hi everyone! My name is Helen Swinyard & I’m one of your guest bloggers throughout the #ALAMW16 conference in Boston. I will be one of a team sharing my thoughts about my first ever American Library Association conference! I am very excited to be visiting Boston & finding out a little more about what’s happening in the US library scene  – especially in school libraries. Please do tweet me @HelenSwinyard throughout the conference. I am looking forward to connecting with you all – even if you’re #ALAleftbehind ! I’m also hoping to start some school links between my school and some US ones!

You can find out more about my day job on our blog https://heartlandshighschoolharingeylibrary.wordpress.com/ or the school website http://heartlands.haringey.sch.uk/curriculum-2/library/ or on @LibraryHHS @HHSHaringey

The post #ALAMW16 Introducing British librarian Helen Swinyard! appeared first on ALSC Blog.