It’s spring, and as president-elect, I’m busy making dozens of process committee appointments. While I’ve fielded volunteer forms from so many of our talented and generous members, we have more opportunities for your participation!
What are process committees? These are the core committees that allow ALSC to function. Members of process committees do meaningful work, gain resume-building experiences and connections, and keep ALSC innovative. The work of our association is broad, so whatever your interest, we can give you an opportunity to develop your skills! Will you join us?
The following committees have opportunities for service. Terms are two years, beginning at the close of the upcoming Annual Conference. An excerpt from the committee’s function statement is included after each. For full details of a committee, please see the ALSC Handbook of Organization beginning on page 59.
The committees:
Children & Technology
To educate and encourage youth librarians to be leaders on technology issues in their institutions.
Education
To inform the ALSC Board of members’ needs and concerns regarding continuing education, and to assist in the initiation of programs and new publications to meet these needs and concerns.
Intellectual Freedom
To advise the division on matters before the Office for Intellectual Freedom and their implication for library service to children and to make recommendations to the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee for changes in policies involving library service to children; to promote in-service and continuing education programs in the area of intellectual freedom for those who select library material for children.
Legislation
To serve as a channel of communication on legislative matters between the ALA Legislation Committee and the Division, recommending to the ALSC Board changes as necessary in federal, state, and local legislation proposed by the ALA Legislation Committee.
Liaisons with National Organizations
To explore, recommend, initiate and implement ways of working with organizations that serve children or work for their benefit; to promote libraries and reading to these organizations; to promote awareness of these organizations’ activities, services and informational materials to ALSC members.
Library Service to Special Populations and Their Caregivers
To speak for special populations children and their caregivers; these may include those who have learning or physical differences, those who are speaking English as a second language, those who are in a non-traditional school environment, those who are in non-traditional family settings (such as teen parents, foster children, children in the juvenile justice system, and children in gay and lesbian families), and those who need accommodation service to meet their needs.
Membership
To plan campaigns for recruiting and securing new members for ALSC at the national, state, regional, and local level.
Oral History
To continue to collect audio taped interviews and individual recollections of leaders in the Association for Library Service to Children for the ALSC Oral History Collection.
Public Awareness
To plan, execute, coordinate, and disseminate public awareness campaigns about the importance of library service for youth.
Quicklists (attendance at conference optional except for chairs)
To serve as consultants and to promote books and other resources through recommendations, compilations of lists, and related services for mass media, individuals, and institutions/organizations involved in the production of programs, films, and other materials/services for children, their families, caregivers, and teachers.
School Age Programs and Service
To identify and disseminate information on effective, cooperative or innovative programming for school-age children to libraries, schools, and community agencies serving youth
Special Collections and Bechtel Fellowship
To administer annually the Bechtel Fellowship to up to three (3) librarians to read and study at the Baldwin Library of the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, for a period of at least one month.
To volunteer, please fill in the volunteer form here, last entry in list, and submit it electronically. If you can *only* serve as a virtual member on a committee, please note that on the form. If you have experience on a committee and would like to be the chair (a one-year term), please note that also.
Thanks so much for being an active member of ALSC. I look forward to hearing from you!
Mary Fellows
Vice-President/President-Elect, Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association
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If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com.