What Kinds of Programs do ALSC Members Want at ALA Annual 2017?

Are you interested in developing a program for ALA Annual 2017, and wondering what topics are in demand from ALSC members? In January, the Program Coordinating Committee put out a call for ideas and asked for your feedback. We offered thirteen topic areas and asked members to rank their favorites.

Here are all thirteen topic areas we suggested ranked in order of ALSC members’ choices:

1. Diversity in children’s lit
2. Partnerships and outreach
3. Age specific programming
4. STEM/STEAM
5. Summer learning
6. Difficult conversations
7. Media mentorship
8. Recent immigrant communities
9. Collection development
10. Diversity in the profession
11. Advocacy
12. Gender diversity
13. Networking

Need more inspiration? Below you’ll find additional ideas suggested by ALSC members in response to the survey. These are not ranked and appear in the order in which they were received.

Additional Program Ideas:

• Continuing Education after the MLIS
• Working with difficult coworkers/directors/city agencies– best practices, stress relief, etc
• Programming for Children with Special Needs
• Localized networking- how to bring back info from ALA, etc, and share with people who can’t afford time/money for conference
• Poetry, poetry programs, apps, National Poetry Month
• Social services: ie. Food programs at the library to serve hungry families, homelessness, libraries as a safe environment etc
• Child development and how it relates to library services, the mechanics of reading ( to help with readers advisory for emerging readers)
• The impact on tech on families
• Recent youth space upgrades/renovations. Slide shows etc
• Early Literacy/Babies Need Words
• Preschool Programming outside of storytime
• Becoming a youth services manager
• Statistics, budgeting
• I would love to see a diversity track that covers diversity in the profession, networking with others that are from a more diverse culture, diversity in children’s lit, gender diversity, also how to encourage diversity in publishing and other areas related to libraries.
• Creating a culture of reading in our community
• Time/workload management; librarian lifehacks
• Leadership and management chops
• Homeschooling
• Serving low-income kids and families
• Parent involvement
• Advancing early literacy best practices based on research- screens and reality

The call for proposals for ALA Annual 2017 in Chicago will go out in late March/early April. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

-The ALSC Program Coordinating Committee