How to use this Page

“Spring is the time of plans and projects.”

― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Welcome! (Taken at Arapahoe Library District’s Koelbel Library)

I kicked off last month at the Illinois Youth Services Institute, in Normal, presenting on Media Mentorship with one of the co-authors of our white paper on the topic and newly elected “New to ALSC” Board member, Amy Koester, encouraging everybody in the audience (and you, too!) to tweet “I am a #mediamentor”. Congratulations to my fellow Prairie state children’s librarians who imagined and delivered a wonderful inaugural event.

Then I headed up several thousand feet to Denver, for the Public Library Association conference, the theme of which was “Be Extraordinary.” The week was absolutely that, and more, and you can discover some of the experiences there by looking back at the live blogging that several ALSC members did, including pictures from the awesome ALSC Happy Hour and from my invigorating visit, along with our Executive Director, Aimee Strittmatter, to the beautiful Koelbel Library of the Arapahoe Library District, in Centennial, Colorado.

I had an especially transformative National Library Week this year by visiting 5 libraries in 5 states in 5 days! I began at the Kate Waller Barrett Branch Library in Alexandria, Virginia, built in 1937 and named after, as its website says, “a humanitarian, social crusader and political reformer.” Then on to a building built more than three-quarters of a century later, the beautifully modern Silver Spring Library, part of the Montgomery County Public Libraries in Maryland, followed by a visit to the Tippecanoe County Public Library’s Downtown Library in Lafayette, Indiana, where the “people chairs” make for very comfy reading. Next, a stop back home at Chicago Public Library’s Hall Branch, where Charlemae Hill Rollins served as children’s librarian many decades ago. Then it was westward to the Oxnard Public Library’s Main Library in California, where it was clear upon entering their “Area Para Los Niños” that the community was having a very happy week! All of these visits to ALSC members and our libraries, along with my many others this year (which you can discover on Twitter with #ALSCtour) have made me even more amazed at the work we do and the libraries in which, and from which, we do it. Not to mention even more excited about celebrating these spaces at my President’s Program at Annual (Monday, 6/27, 1:00, Convention Center #W110A), and you can check out a quick video about it, filmed in Ms. Rollins children’s room, here:

On the Friday of National Library Week, the singular Pat Mora presented a joyous Arbuthnot Lecture–¡Alegría en los libros!–at the gorgeous Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) and you can also enjoy it here. Gracias to SBCC, the Santa Barbara Public Library System, and the University of California at Santa Barbara, which includes the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. BTW, applications are now being accepted to host next year’s Arbuthnot Lecture starring Jacqueline Woodson, so please consider applying by May 15 here.

In Santa Barbara’s fantastic new Central Library Children’s Room with ’16 Arbuthnot Chair Julie Corsaro & Senior Youth Services Librarian Gwen Wagy. #BabiesNeedWordsEveryDay (Photo by Aimee Strittmatter)

Then I was delighted to be reunited with Pat again several days later, this time in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 20th anniversary of El día de los niños/El día de los libros, the nationally recognized initiative founded by Pat that emphasizes the importance of literacy for all children from all backgrounds. With support from ALA’s Washington Office we had a joyful morning of books (and cake!) at the U.S. Captiol along with Rep. Donald M. Payne, Jr. (NJ-10), Rep. Mark Takano (CA-41), Sen. Jack Reed (RI).

Congressman Mark Takano of California reads “Book Fiesta!” while Pat Mora, me, and kids from CentroNia and Payne Elementary School celebrate. (Photo by Aimee Strittmatter)

Thanks, everybody, for a delightful Día and an awesome April! I’m looking forward to May’s flowers and want to congratulate all of those who stood for election on this year’s ALSC ballot–both those who won and those whose names will I hope appear again soon!

The post An April-full of ALSC Adventures appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Thank you to everyone for the robust and respectful discussion regarding the status of the 2016 ALSC National Institute following North Carolina’s passage of HB2 one month ago. I’m incredibly grateful to my Board colleagues for their careful consideration and knowledge-based decision making. We heard very loudly and consistently from ALSC members on this issue and while I very much share in the disappointment that we won’t be gathering together in Charlotte this September, I’m proud of how all of us in the ALSC community have handled this challenging, important, and very real issue that led to its cancellation.

Throughout this process, the work of ALSC Executive Director Aimee Strittmatter and of Kristen Figliulo, Program Officer for Continuing Education, has been nothing short of extraordinary, as has that of their office colleagues Laura Schulte-Cooper, Dan Bostrom, Angela Hubbard, Marsha Burgess, and Courtney Jones. Vice President Betsy Orsburn, Fiscal Officer Diane Foote, Division Councilor Jenna Nemec-Loise, and Budget Committee Chair Paula Holmes have also been particularly involved in this process.

If you haven’t yet seen the Board document that outlines the details involved in this decision, please do take a look at it here.

Support from across all of ALA has been tremendous. ALA President Sari Feldman is a great friend of ALSC and of library service to children and I hope you’ll join me in expressing appreciation to her for her advocacy and support, as well as to Mario Gonzalez, ALA Treasurer and Executive Board Liaison to ALSC. ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels and Senior Associate Executive Director Mary Ghikas, along with the Public Awareness Office and Office for Library Advocacy have been there for ALSC at every step along the way. And a very special THANK YOU to our good friends at the ALA Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table, especially Chair Peter Coyl, Chair-Elect Deb Sica, and Immediate Past-Chair Ann Symons.

Please also help me express our incredible thanks to the Institute Planning Task Force, who have put so much dedication, care, and excitement into their work for many, many, many months. Thank you to Chair Emily Nanney and members Seth Ervin, Catherine Haydon, Jesse Isley, Karin Michel, Rebecca Thomas, and Priority Group Consultant Julie Dietzel-Glair. For those of you who will attending the ALA Annual Conference in June, please plan to attend the ALSC Membership Meeting on Monday (June 27) at 10:30 a.m. in the Orange County Convention Center Room W308, as we pay special tribute to the Task Force.

It was important that we took these weeks to make such a careful and considered decision, and while some elements of its implementation are still in progress, here is the latest information:

• Our Quicklists Committee has compiled a Transgender/Inclusion Advocacy & Information resource. The aim of this list is to educate and support both library workers and the general public regarding the legislation and the issues of transgender rights. It includes several organizations to contact regarding advocacy, donating time and money, and a bibliography of related books, including picture books, fiction, and nonfiction.
• Those who were registered for the Institute will receive a full refund of registration fees without penalty.
• For those who had already booked airfare, ALSC has created a memo to airlines (including American Airlines, for which Charlotte is a major hub) requesting they waive the change fee or offer a full refund, in the spirit of solidarity, to those who booked travel to North Carolina over the Institute dates.
• ALSC is now planning to hold a one-day workshop immediately prior to the 2017 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, January 20, to accommodate as much of the Institute’s creative programming as possible.
• ALSC also plans to offer much of the Institute’s educational content in an online format.

Specific details around which content will be offered, as well as its timing, pricing, and format, will be available in the coming weeks as ALSC works through the details, and Betsy and I will have additional information in our upcoming May ALSC Matters! columns. So stay tuned, and if you have any additional questions or thoughts, please feel free to share them in the comments section below or via e-mail at [email protected].

The post Update on the #ALSC16 Institute appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Give us your feedback on how to move forward with the National Institute (image courtesy of ALSC)

I’m reaching out today, International Transgender Day of Visibility, to share information regarding the 2016 ALSC National Institute and last week’s passing of North Carolina’s HB2 legislation, with the objective of gathering more member feedback within the next few days.

Thank you to everyone who has already expressed thoughts, concerns, support, and questions regarding this extremely important situation.

This is not an abstract issue. In addition to this law’s conflict with ALSC’s core values, purpose, and diversity work, in the past week ALSC leadership has heard from members who are personally affected by it in a very real way. During this time we have been consulting with ALA management and President Sari Feldman; ALA Conference Services; the ALA Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT); the ALA Public Awareness Office; the Institute Planning Task Force; the North Carolina Library Association; the Charlotte Marriott City Center; and, most importantly, as I mentioned, ALSC members on ALSC-L and via e-mail and social media.

With the Institute less than six months away and an ALSC calendar scheduled literally years in advance, unfortunately moving the event to another state is not a viable alternative even with a change of date. The alternative to moving forward with the Institute as scheduled in Charlotte is to cancel it.

We are working with GLBTRT on a continuing course of action and to prepare should the Institute proceed in Charlotte, a city with a culture of inclusiveness and library support. Indeed, it was Charlotte’s transgender-inclusive, nondiscrimination ordinance which was subsequently and egregiously reversed by the state’s HB2 legislation. We have already sent a letter to Governor McCrory urging him to support a swift repeal of HB2, however please be aware that we are a 501(c)(3) organization and must be very conscious that actions such as calls for boycotts and electioneering may put ALA at risk.

The Institute schedule does include programs specifically on equity and inclusion for all and we are actively looking to develop further programmatic content to help raise awareness and share resources. We have begun speaking with local LGBTQIA organizations in Charlotte on how we can actively support their work, and welcome suggestions of any of which you’re aware.

We continue to monitor and assess the situation closely and want to hear from you as your immediate feedback will help us plot our course moving forward and make a decision regarding the Institute within the next two weeks. To respond, please leave a comment below. If you would like to reach out to me privately, please feel free to do so at [email protected].

The post Share Your Thoughts on the Institute and HB2 appeared first on ALSC Blog.

A lot of great things happened at SXSWedu since my last post!

Aimee and Andrew can’t wait to share the power of libraries!

On Tuesday, ALSC hosted a booth at the SXSWedu Expo, which was free and open to the public. Executive Director Aimee Strittmatter and I had the opportunity to speak to the thousands of attendees of all ages from all over the world about the transformative power of libraries. Many were drawn in by our cool magnetic building tools, which we brought to show, as our 2012 White Paper shares, “The Importance of Play, Particularly Constructive Play, in Public Library Programming” and of the awesome STEAM learning opportunities libraries provide. While advocating for the essential role of all libraries in every community, we were delighted to be able to specifically highlight the amazing work being done right there in central Texas as Aimee as I were joined in our booth by Kathleen Houlihan from Austin Public Library and Sally Miculek from Georgetown Public Library who were able to promote their amazing services for children. Thank you Kathleen and Sally!

That afternoon I attended a powerful session on “Designing an Innovative Future for Early Learning” featuring Michael Levine, co-author with Lisa Guernsey, of Tap, Click, Read, and attended by Libby Doggett, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education where she leads the Office of Early Learning. I listened in on a panel on “School’s Out, So Let the Learning Continue,” which billed itself as exploring “the myriad opportunities open to kids outside of the classroom” but which, IMO, did not contain enough talk of libraries, showing how much more advocating we have yet to do to ensure we’re part of this national conversation. And I was blown away by the fabulous “Hacking Education Through Libraries” presenation by ALA’s own Miguel Figueroa, Director of the Center for the Future of Libraries; Carolyn Foote, District Librarian at Westlake High School in Austin; and Joyce Valenza, Director of the MLIS program at Rutgers, my alma mater. Their interactive program produced many great ideas on the ways libraries can play even greater roles in education in the future and you can find many of those on Twitter using #hacklib.

Then it was time to pay an #ALSCtour visit to the Austin Public Library’s Faulk Central Library and to learn about the amazing New Central Library coming to the city this fall.

The children’s room in Austin’s Faulk Central Library

You can find more pictures from that visit and thoughts and information from all of SXSWedu that I shared on Twitter @ammlib.

And innovation in Austin isn’t limited to new libraries and education! One of the best ideas I’ve ever seen for an appetizer is offered at Second Bar + Kitchen on Congress Ave, where they cut to the chase and put a chocolate milkshake right on the same plate with French fries for easy dipping!

Best appetizer ever at Second Bar + Kitchen!

All in all, SXSWedu was an ideal place for ALSC to reach out and move forward toward a future in which libraries are recognized as vital to all children and the communities that support them.

The post Wrapping Up #SXSWedu appeared first on ALSC Blog.

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.

Cheer, cheer, cheer the year,
A new one’s just begun.
Celebrate with all your friends,
Let’s go have some fun!
Clap, clap, clap your hands,
A brand new year is here.
Learning, laughing, singing, clapping,
Through another year.

–Anonymous (to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”)

Happy New Year, everyone!

Seeing out the old year, one of my final presidential activities of 2015 was also one of the most interesting. I was very happy to represent ALSC at the “Breakthroughs in Parent Engagement and Early Literacy” forum, presented by New America and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, sponsored by the Joyce Foundation, and held here in Chicago at Erikson Institute’s Technology in Early Childhood (TEC) Center. It was led by Lisa Guernsey and Michael Levine, authors of the book Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens, which Lisa talked about when she presented the keynote at last summer’s Leadership & ALSC meeting at ALA Annual in San Francisco.

Andrew & Aimee at #TechEarlyLit. Photo credit: Tamara Kaldor

I was joined that day by ALSC Executive Director Aimee Strittmatter, and other attendees included researchers, educators, parent-engagement specialists, and policymakers, all coming together to gain a clearer picture of the changing terrain of parenting and early learning programs in formal and informal settings, and exploring new initiatives in this area, particularly those involving evolving technology like apps. It was a chance for ALSC to spread the word about children’s librarians’ roles as Media Mentors and to collaborate with colleagues from such groups as the Institute for Educational Leadership, the Ounce of Prevention Fund, the Thirty Million Words Initiative, and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Early Learning.

Photo source: http://www.erikson.edu/

For more perspectives on the forum, you can check out tweets from the day using #TechEarlyLit.

Seeing in the new, one of the first ALSC events of 2016 starts this week, as Midwinter is much earlier than usual this year. For those of you who will be in Boston, the list of ALSC activities is available here, and everybody at home can follow along here on the ALSC Blog and on Twitter with #alamw16 and #alaleftbehind. Especially useful will be the exploration of the many ways you can take advantage of our newly updated Core Competencies at Leadership & ALSC on Saturday morning (January 9) at 8:30 a.m. Eastern (in person: Convention Center Room 153A; at home: #leadALSC).

I can’t wait to be back in Boston, get to see so many friends, visit local libraries as part of my #ALSCtour, and of course learn the winners of the Youth Media Awards (YMA) on Monday morning (January 11) at 8:00 Eastern. (#ALAyma) I’ll be putting on a tie very early to emcee this year’s announcements, which is, IMO, the most exciting presidential duty, even for this non-morning person, and one which comes with a sneak peak at the winners (my lips & tweets are sealed!). If you’re planning to watch in a more casual outfit, you can check out the details on this year’s virtual pajama viewing party here. Best wishes to all of the award committees and thank you for your hard and fun work!

Midwinter is also very important for ALSC as one of the two times a year our entire Board comes together in person to work on our strategic future. (#ALSCboard) The Board’s agenda and accompanying documents are available to all here, and you will definitely be hearing from me afterwards with an account of our meetings. I’m particularly looking forward to our mega-issue discussion on ALSC’s role in the future of summer reading & learning, and if you have any thoughts or questions on any of these agenda items, please feel free to let me know at [email protected].

Cheers to the years, old and new!

The post Welcome to 2016 & See You at Midwinter! appeared first on ALSC Blog.

One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow . . . [and] no one could wait for the holidays to start.

–J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The writing’s on the wall at the Central Children’s Library in Denver!

As the days get shorter and colder in the northern hemisphere and the holidays arrive, it’s been a busy season!

A couple of weeks ago I was in Denver (where it’s already snowed about as much as at Hogwarts) reaching out to those gathered for the LENA Research Foundation conference (#lena2015), the theme of which was “Parents Have the Power: Solving the ‘early catastrophe’ through science and parental investment.” It was an ideal opportunity to share the work ALSC is doing with Babies Need Words Every Day and in our partnership with PLA on Every Child Ready to Read, and I joined a panel with a pediatrician, health policy professor, and early learning innovator to discuss what each of us can bring to the work of making sure children are ready to read. Dr. Dana Suskind, author of Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain, gave the conference keynote, and we also heard from the Campaign for Grade Level Reading; Kara Dukakis, Director of Too Small to Fail; and Carine Risley, Library Services Manager at San Mateo County Library in California. I was delighted to be joined by children’s librarians from across Colorado, and of course it’s always fun to visit the Denver Public Library, where I saw many piles of cardboard (have you read Amy Seto Forrester’s recent post yet?) and many, many instances of kids talking, singing, reading, writing, and playing—thanks Ann Schwab, Rachel Hartman, and Lauren Dennis! (You can see all of the conference presentations here.)

The greeting at the Bangor airport

I’m most grateful to ALSC member Louise Capizzo (@Lcapizzo) for inviting me to be a part of this year’s Maine Library Association Annual Conference in Bangor where I was lucky enough to present a keynote about ALSC’s work, entitled “The Future: Moving Forward, Reaching Out, Giving Back.” I had an absolutely fantastic time and was thrilled to be joined at the conference by my ALSC Board colleague Vicky Smith, as well as ALA president Sari Feldman, right off the plane from the Sharjah Library Conference, who inspired us all with her Libraries Transform message.

Paul Bunyan welcomes MLA conference attendees on a beautiful Maine morning.

On this trip my #ALSCtour took me to the Brewer Public Library and I arrived just as storytime was wrapping up and the whole building, parking lot, and playground (the library has their own) was filled with happiness! Many thanks to director Katie Conner, children’s librarian Shelley Arnold, and all of their wonderful colleagues for all they do for the kids of Brewer, Maine every day!

Miss Shelley hangs a Babies Need Words Every Day poster in the Brewer Public Library’s children’s room.

And December may be icy at Hogwarts, but it’s warm and sunny in Puerto Rico, which made this the perfect time for me to visit and–even better!–get to work with 2010 Belpré Honor winner Georgina Lázaro León to film a promo for next year’s 20^th anniversary of the Pura Belpré Award. Working together with our Belpré partner, REFORMA, we shot it on the grounds of Escuela Central de Artes Visuales, the building where Pura Belpré attended high school in San Juan’s Santurce neighborhood, which is where she lived until moving to New York in the 1920s and going on to be the first Puerto Rican librarian at New York Public Library. Stay tuned for the final cut of our video and in the meantime save the date for the Belpré celebración at ALA Annual in Orlando on Sunday, June 26, 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Yours truly & Georgina Lázaro León, ready for our close-up

This is one among many, many wonderful things coming in 2016 as we all continue to work together to build a better future for children though libraries!

The post On the Road Again, Reaching Out appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Calling all Everyday Advocates! The fight for school libraries is real, and it needs you to make a difference.

Use the resources on the Everyday Advocacy site to help make your voice heard! Photo courtesy of ALSC.

Congress is poised to act definitively on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) very soon. According ALA’s Washington Office, we could know as early as next week if watershed language for school libraries, included in the Senate’s Every Child Achieves Act (S. 1177), makes it into this federal education bill.

This means there is important work for all of us to do! The last time Congress passed an education bill they left out school libraries and our kids’ futures can’t afford for that to happen again. As soon as the Washington Office learns what is in the new compromise bill language, they will be posting an alert to the Legislative Action Center with instructions for how you can help (including talking points you can use to call, email, and Tweet Congress). That will be our opportunity to make sure that every member of the House of Representatives (and after that, the Senate) hears from library experts before they vote, which could be as early as December 2. ALSC will also provide a heads-up when it’s time.

Here’s how you can make a difference:

• Be prepared to contact your Senators and Representatives and let them know that any agreement to reauthorize ESEA must maintain the school library provisions overwhelmingly adopted by the HELP Committee and the full Senate under S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act.
• Give a heads-up to coworkers, family, and friends to take action as well by contacting Congress sometime between next week and mid-December.
• Gather together stories about the impact of school libraries in your community which you can use when you and your supporters contact Congress.

For support in these vital efforts, check out the tips from ALSC’s Everyday Advocacy initiative at http://www.ala.org/everyday-advocacy/

The more voices that speak up on behalf of school libraries, the better for all kids! Please keep your eyes peeled and your ears open for the upcoming alert.

Thank you!

Andrew Medlar
ALSC President

The post Fight for School Libraries! #ESEA appeared first on ALSC Blog.

“Maggie darted about like a black-stockinged bird, in search of wood for the fireplace. She and her grandmother lived at the edge of a lonely cranberry bog in New England, and the winds were cold at the edge of the sea.”

—Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin (Parent’s Magazine Press, 1971)

So begins one of my very, very favorite books ever, set at this time of the year when we give thanks–and there’s been much to be thankful for so far this fall.

At the beginning of October I traveled to Ohio to visit my childhood library in Trotwood with my very own children’s librarian Tish Wilson, now assistant director for Youth Services at Dayton Metro Library. And even though the building has been renovated and expanded and my old elementary school is now just a big field next door, I was happy to see that the convenience store where we used to buy Now and Laters after school (and where, it turns out, the children’s librarian would go for caffeine before storytime) was still alive and well. It was extremely cool to come back, full circle, and pay it forward for more generations of library kids as ALSC president with our Babies Need Words Every Day posters.

With Tish in Trotwood (photo by Sarah Reynolds)

Selfie with Ellen at Enoch Pratt

Then it was off to the Peoria Public Library, which has some of the most fun library seating+display shelving I’ve ever seen. And I was delighted to share the stage later that week at the Illinois Library Association Youth Services Forum breakfast with two-time Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka.

Hooray for reading at Peoria Public Library! (Photo by @lillitlibrarian)

On Saturday, October 24, the ALSC Executive Committee gathered in Chicago. This working group of officers meets in between Board meetings to keep ALSC moving forward and, invaluably, the entire ALSC office staff is also part of the day-long meeting. The list of topics and documents covered during the meeting are here, and conversations ranged from the strong strategic and financial health of our organization (and how we can work together to keep it that way) to gearing up for Midwinter, just two months away!

A big deal in October was the release of the newly updated ALSC Competencies for Librarians Serving Children in Public Libraries, which is a masterful accomplishment of our Education Committee. These vital and evolving guidelines will be the topic of both our fall Community Forum (#ALSCforum) on November 9 and the Leadership & ALSC session (#ALSClead) at Midwinter on January 9, which everyone’s invited to attend in Boston. These sessions will look at not only how to use the Competencies to support your own work, but also to advocate for our profession as a whole.

And finally, the end of October saw the launch of Libraries Transform, ALA’s new, multi-year public awareness campaign, the ultimate goal of which is to increase funding support for libraries and advance information policy issues in alignment with ALA advocacy goals. Check it out!

One of the Libraries Transform messages : “According to dosomething.org, 43% of kids have been bullied online. Libraries transform to inform parents and kids about online safety.”

Speaking of being thankful this month, and as the calendar year begins to wrap up, please consider a contribution to Friends of ALSC as a way to give thanks and give back, and many thanks to all of you!

The post A Transformative and Thankful Fall appeared first on ALSC Blog.

If you haven’t heard the big news, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has just released updated findings in regards to the use of screen time by young children  which emerged from their recent Growing Up Digital: Media Research Symposium. I’m excited to report that the AAP findings fully support ALSC’s position as outlined in the Media Mentorship in Libraries Serving Youth white paper adopted by our Board of Directors back in March.

More than ever, families and children will be turning to libraries and youth services staff for help in navigating the digital landscape and in making sound, developmentally appropriate decisions on media use. Your professional association is here to help you rise to the occasion and embrace the role of media mentor with the white paper and other resources that offer helpful ways for you to respond to your families.

ALSC resources available to support you in meeting this evolving opportunity include:

• Check out the professional tools for digital media on ALSC’s website. ALSC’s Digital Content Task Force collected a go-to list of resources and we’re always looking for more to keep the page fresh and updated, so don’t hesitate to submit your recommendations through the form.

• The media mentorship white paper landing page has several resources including FREE webcasts such as “Best Practices for Apps/eBooks in Storytime” presented by ALSC member and littleelit.com founder Cen Campbell. Littleelit.com is a crowd-sourced, collaborative think tank focused on developing best practices for infusing new media into library programs, services, and collections.

• This very blog has regular posts related to technology programming and collections, so check it regularly and stay on top of the trends.

• Two new task forces are sure to keep us forging ahead as media mentors:
  • The Media Mentorship Award Task Force is developing a potential award for excellence in innovative use of media with children, including a process for recognizing an exemplary media mentor program.
  • The Expansion of the Notable Children’s Video Task Force is exploring the possibility of expanding Notable Children’s Videos to include new digital media.

• Keep your eyes open for a new how-to book authored by Cen Campbell, Claudia Haines, and ALSC, scheduled for release next June. 

• The ALSC National Institute in Charlotte, NC next September will feature a media mentorship program.

• ALSC leadership has submitted a proposal to present media mentorship to educators at SXSWedu next March and at the 2016 IBBY Congress next August.

• ALSC leaders continue to engage in conversations with organizations such as New America and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center.

We’re all in this together! Let’s share our thoughts, successes, and requests for help on ALSC-L.  Do you use new media regularly in your programming and services? Want to share your know-how with colleagues? ALSC is always looking for new webinar content so please feel free to share your ideas with the Education committee here. 

Media mentoring is vital to supporting the lives and literacies of children and families in the twenty-first century. Each of us committing to the role of media mentor is crucial to our success as a profession that serves children. I look forward to continuing this journey together!

The post Media Mentorship & AAP’s New Digital Media Guidelines appeared first on ALSC Blog.

I was really struck by the 25^th anniversary of German Reunification (called the Day of German Unity or Tag der Deutschen Einheit) falling during Banned Books Week last week. Growing up during part of the Cold War, I certainly remember textbooks and other nonfiction titles that gave us not-very-favorable messages about East Germany and even recall being told that kids there weren’t allowed to pick the books they wanted to read on their own. During my visits to libraries in Germany and Poland this past month I thought and talked a lot about the freedom to read and the future of library service to children with some of our international colleagues.

In Berlin, librarians Heidrun Huebner-Gepp and Sarah Tscholl welcomed me to their Bibliothek am Luisenbad and shared a tour of their building, which was built in 1888 and is filled with Smart Boards, engaging face-out collections, programming spaces, and a diverse clientele with whom they focus on languages and digital media literacy. This community’s emphasis on welcoming those new to Germany is particularly relevant during this time when the country is seeing a significant influx of refugees from Syria.

Bibliothek am Luisenbad, circa 1888

Bibliothek am Luisenbad, circa 2015

Welcome to Biblioteka Publiczna Miasta i Gminy Słubice

The library I visited in Poland, Biblioteka Publiczna Miasta i Gminy Słubice, featured a fascinating display of local and national history while also providing tons and tons of e-content. Even with my limited knowledge of Polish, I could tell when it was trzecia, or three o’clock, as in a scene familiar to many of us, kids rushed in to sign up for computer time.

I spent a delightful afternoon with Benjamin Scheffler, who is the director of the Children’s and Youth Library and Learning Center of Berlin’s Central and Regional Library, where they really see the library as a place of learning, and their melding of traditional and innovative spaces, collections, and services was inspiring, both to me and their hundreds of thousands of annual users. The importance of adults and young kids making time together to sprechen, singen, lessen, schreiben, und spielen (talk, sing, read, write, and play) is truly universal!

Home of the Children’s and Youth Library of the Central and Regional Library of Berlin (ZLB)

And I can highly recommend a visit to the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Center at Humboldt University of Berlin where thousands of documents from the Grimms’ personal library live and breathe. It also features, as Yelp aptly describes, “a reading room for mothers with children or pregnant women [where t]oddlers can play while mothers study.”

You can check out #ALSCtour on Twitter to learn more about these and my other visits in September to the Ottendorfer Branch of New York Public Library (the 1^st free public library in NYC!) and the youth department of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library in Illinois. Also take a look at #KidsBookSummit for my account of the 2015 Nielsen Children’s Book Summit. This was an important event for ALSC to be represented at as publishers and librarians can learn so much from each other as we share this landscape of media for children, and I’m happy to report that the call for diverse books was a key part of the day.

*I love libraries!

The post ALSC Around the World: Ich liebe Bibliotheken!* appeared first on ALSC Blog.

“September is the January in fashion”
–Candy Pratts Price, The September Issue (Lionsgate Films, 2009)

Just as while no matter how the fashions in the pages of GQ and Vogue may change we all still need a shirt to put on every morning, so too do library design trends evolve even as ALSC’s Big Hairy Audacious Goal of libraries being recognized as vital to all children and the communities that support them remains timelessly true.

One community that clearly does recognize this and loves its library is Chicago’s Chinatown. On August 29th, thousands of neighbors came together to celebrate their Chicago Public Library that replaced a very well-used storefront facility. This new 16,000-square-foot feng shui-influenced building is phenomenal, and was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the firm responsible for the Sears (oops, I mean Willis) Tower, One World Trade Center, and the tallest buildings in Singapore, Beijing, and Dubai. Chinatown’s awesome children’s area integrates the Every Child Ready to Read @ Your Library, 2nd edition, practices of Talking, Singing, Reading, Writing, and Playing into the shelves and furniture and proudly emblazons them on the wall in very special art by Steve Musgrave.

The early stages of Chicago Public Library’s Chinatown Branch children’s room. Source: Andrew Medlar

Source: Steve Musgrave

A satisfied customer on opening day! Source: Chicago Public Library

This is, of course, merely one example out of thousands of amazing, inspiring, functional, and fun libraries for kids across the planet, and I’m elated to announce that my Charlemae Rollins President’s Program at the 2016 ALA Annual Conference will explore library spaces for children. Co-chairs Elizabeth McChesney, Director of Children’s Services at Chicago Public Library, and Christy Estrovitz, Youth Services Manager at San Francisco Public Library (which has its own wonderful Chinatown branch) are hard at work putting together an inspiring program that will share the latest design trends and timeless tricks from around the world for making all libraries (regardless of size and/or budget) ones that engage kids and celebrate space as one of the most important services we provide to young people.

Why am I mentioning next June when it’s only September (or “January,” as the opening quote may have us believe)? So we can do something we do so well in ALSC: collaborate! As I visit ALSC members and our library spaces this year I invite you to follow along on Twitter using #ALSCtour as I’ll be sharing ideas and images I discover in Arizona, California, Colorado, DC, Florida, Germany, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, Puerto Rico, Texas, and Wisconsin. (And who knows where else I may pop up!) I also hope you’ll participate by sharing images of your own spaces and how they spark joy in the lives of children and their families by using #ALSCprez on Twitter and pinning to the “Children’s Libraries” board on ALSC’s Pinterest page.

See you soon!

The post Libraries: The “in” place to be in! appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Delicious! (image courtesy the author)

A sure sign of the approaching end-of-warm-weather in my office is the farewell party for our summer interns. (While that’s bitter in several ways, it’s especially sweet when my colleague Michelle makes her amazing cookies for the occasion.) This year about half a dozen high school students joined us and, of course, we have asked them what they learned while working here the last couple of months and how their perceptions of libraries have changed. And it’s been interesting/fascinating/frightening to see how even among this group of engaged young people with library cards most had arrived without full awareness of everything libraries have to offer.

This is another reminder of how important it is for us to advocate and tell our story to all ages, and so, looking to reach out to new audiences, ALSC has submitted a program proposal, Library Media Mentors Transform, for SXSWedu, an educational innovation conference from the South by Southwest folks, which will be held in Austin, Texas, this coming March.

SXSWedu 2016

SXSWedu “fosters innovation in learning by hosting a diverse and energetic community of stakeholders across a variety of backgrounds in education” and is an ideal place for ALSC to bring our message about Media Mentorship and fighting the 30 million word gap. The objectives of our program proposal include:

• How to identify and support the roles librarians serve as media mentors to families in your community
• Evidence-based guidelines for media usage with young children
• How to partner with libraries to enrich your family engagement effort and support the goals of your educational program.

Media Mentorship in Libraries Serving Youth white paper (image courtesy ALSC)

And for ALSC to get there, we need you! SXSWedu sessions are selected by an advisory board and staff, but 30% of the decision comes from votes from the public, so please help us spread the word about youth services librarians as media mentors by casting your vote here for the Library Media Mentors Transform program proposal. Public voting is open now through September 4, and while it does involve creating a log-in to vote, it’s worth those extra couple seconds to bring ALSC advocacy to this new and emerging arena.

Thanks for your help!

The post Send ALSC to SXSWedu! appeared first on ALSC Blog.

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot . . . These are strange and breathless days, the dog days.”

—Natalie Babbit, Tuck Everlasting

Odds are that at least one of your Facebook friends will post the above quote this week—and for good reason, as this is, IMO, one of the best descriptions of summer ever to come from an ALSC Notable Children’s Book. Tuck Everlasting was named a Notable Children’s Book after its 1975 publication and is now widely hailed as a classic. Announced each year after Midwinter, the Notables lists of books, recordings, and videos, bring well-deserved attention to those titles which are “worthy of note or notice, important, distinguished, outstanding” and make superb resources for curating collections in libraries and homes. And Notables seals, just like those of the Newbery and its kin, help your library community discover these great titles. I’ve found that a great late summer project can be making sure that all of the Notables in the collection have this honor glinting from their cover, and you can buy Notables seals in sets of 24 here, or if you need 1,000 or more you can go here.

Thanks to all of the hard-working Notables committees over the years and best of luck to this years’!

Here are some other great summer-themed Notables from recent decades:

• Blackout. By John Rocco, Illus. by the author. Disney/Hyperion Books (2012 Books list)
• Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Summer Vacation. By Tommy Greenwald, read by MacLeod Andrews. Brilliance. (2014 Recordings list)
• A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever. By Marla Frazee. Harcourt. (2009 Books list)
• The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester. By Barbara O’Connor. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. (2011 Books list)
• Garmann’s Summer. By Stian Hole, translated by Don Bartlett. Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. (2009 Books list)
• Georgie Lee. By Sharon Philips Denslow, illustrated by Lynne Rae Perkins. Greenwillow. (2003 Books list)
• Horse Song: The Naadam of Mongolia. By Ted and Betsy Lewin. Lee & Low Books. (2009 Books list)
• Hot Day on Abbott Avenue. By Karen English, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe. Clarion. (2005 Books list)
• A Long Way from Chicago: A Novel in Stories. By Richard Peck. Dial. (1999 Books list)
• My Louisiana Sky. Based on the novel by Kimberly Willis Holt. Hallmark Entertainment (2002 Videos list)
• One Crazy Summer. By Rita Williams-Garcia. Harper/Amistad. (2011 Books & Recordings lists)
• The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy. By Jeanne Birdsall. Knopf. (2006 Books list)
• Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time. By Lisa Yee. Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine. (2006 Books list)
• Summersongs. By John McCutcheon. Rounder Records. (1996 Recordings list)
• Sweet Corn. By James Stevenson. Greenwillow. (1996 Books list)

Congratulations to everyone who is now beginning to wind down their summer programming, and warm wishes for an enjoyable rest-of-summer, and here’s hoping that these titles whet the appetites of our southern hemisphere colleagues for the season headed your way. Happy reading, viewing, and listening to all!

My favorite spot on the Lake Michigan shore by my house to read in the summer. Photo source: Andrew Medlar

The post A Notable Summer appeared first on ALSC Blog.

Banners in the San Francisco Public Library’s Main Library welcomed more than 20,000 conference attendees

What a conference!

ALA’s 2015 Annual Conference was full of more energy, enthusiasm, equality, and engagement than any I’ve ever witnessed, and whether you were one of the tens of thousands attending in San Francisco, were following from elsewhere in the world on social media (#alaac15 & #alaleftbehind), or are just now taking a quick breather from summer reading to catch up here on the ALSC Blog, I hope you can see that the future of library service to children is an exciting one!

A bird’s eye view of San Francisco’s Moscone Center and its rainbow flags, home base of the 2015 ALA Annual Conference

In addition to learning and connecting, Annual is also a time of business when Board, staff, committees, and task forces work hard to move our association forward. There are two ALSC Board meetings at Annual and you can peruse the Board’s documents here and find updates on Twitter (#alscboard).

I’d like to bring you up to speed, as well. FYI, this past week, the ALSC Board:

• Considered a report from the Evolving Carnegie Task Force, which was charged with investigating the opportunities for evolving the Carnegie Medal from an award recognizing what was an evolving format at the time of its establishment a quarter of a century ago (videos) to current evolving formats and/or those who are doing great work with them. The next step is having further conversations with the Carnegie Corporation of New York, our partner in the support of this award.
• Heard from the chair of the Diversity within ALSC Task Force, Jos Holman, about their early work “to thoroughly examine diversity within all areas of ALSC such as membership, recruitment, award committees, and leadership and to recommend short-term and long-term strategies for developing richer diversity within the association.”
• Partnered with the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee (CSK) to pilot the expansion of ALSC’s Bill Morris Seminar in 2016 to include CSK members.
• Adjusted the expanded definitions in the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal committee manual to clarify the importance and eligibility of illustrated, graphic, and primary source materials in consideration of the Sibert award.
• Gave a collective thumbs-up to the Program Coordinating Committee’s great slate of proposed programs for next year’s Annual Conference in Orlando. (You won’t want to miss it June 23-28, 2016!)
• Approved ALSC’s healthy fiscal year 2016 budget, as recommended by the Budget Committee, with some exciting growth opportunities which you’ll be hearing about over the next couple of months.
• Wrapped up, together with the Organization & Bylaws Committee, the expansion of some committees to include co-chairs with overlapping terms to foster communication and continuity.
• Reviewed and discussed the Education Committee’s proposed scheduled revision of ALSC’s Competencies for Librarians Serving Children in Public Libraries; the final update will be available soon.

Thank you to all of our committees and task forces who work so diligently during and between conferences, as this work is truly where the rubber meets the road in achieving ALSC’s strategic goals of Advocacy, Education and Access to Library Services. Special gratitude is due to Local Arrangements Committee chair Christy Estrovitz and her entire team for all of their incredible work making ALSC members feel welcome in the Bay Area!

Then, as the sun began to set on the Bay and on Annual, it was time to bid farewell to Immediate Past President Starr LaTronica and other departing Board members Lisa Von Drasek, Rita Auerbach, Jamie Campbell Naidoo, and Michael Santangelo, and to welcome Vice President/President-Elect Betsy Orsburn and new Board members Jenna Nemec-Loise, Christine Caputo, Vicky Smith, and Mary Voors to the table. And, as I was honored to pick up the gavel as ALSC President for 2015-16, I look forward to hearing from you with any questions or ideas at [email protected].

Past President Starr LaTronica, Immediate Past President Ellen Riordan, and President Andrew Medlar at the ALA Inaugural Brunch on June 30, 2015

 (All photos courtesy Andrew Medlar)

The post A is for Annual appeared first on ALSC Blog.