#ALSC12 Moving Mock Newbery Online

The VERY enthusiastic Angela Nolet of King County Library gave an engrossing presentation about her system’s Mock Newbery program, and how it grew and changed from a small in-person staff development activity just for youth-services librarians into what it is today: an online anual months-long event centered around a blog (with Facebook, too), open to participation by the whole community and integrating students from area schools. It was this partnership with the schools that was most exciting to me: the students become SO PASSIONATE about advocating for their favorite books to win that they spend days and weeks preparing their speeches and arguments, which they present to their fellow participants at voting time. Engagement with text much? Angela shared a lot of inspiration alongside of a lot of practical tips, and she did realistically caution us that this kind of thing takes time and staff. It isn’t something you can just do as an “extra” by having branch staff fit in in alongside all their other duties. That said, my brain is already popping with thoughts about how a smaller system without quite so many resources could create their own take on elements of the King County program…