Members of the Association for Library Service to Children engage communities to build healthy, successful futures for all children.
This is ALSC’s vision statement, but what does the work look like to achieve it?
We recently published our 2019-2020 Annual Report, which covers our Association’s work from September 2019 – August 2020 (fiscal year 2020). This report includes a message from 2019 – 2020 ALSC President, Cecilia McGowan, strategic plan progress, initiatives, and much more! It’s a 20-page wrap-up of important activity, and each year I’m amazed at the amount of work accomplished by our members and staff in fulfilling our vision.
Below, I’ve highlighted two sections from this report, but I hope you’ll explore the report in full and share it with others.
Membership and Involvement
At the time of publication of this report, March 2020 membership statistics showed ALSC having 3,932 total members. Since then, estimates show we have experienced a small decline in membership by about 3%. This decline is probable and expected due to COVID-19 and the continued challenges and uncertainties we are facing. I know we have a long, but hopeful, road ahead to bring us over that 4,000-member mark again. If we continue to build trust and community by sticking to our core values, we’ll get there.
If any ALSC members would like to share ideas for how to build and engage our membership, the Membership Committee would like to hear from you! Their next meeting will be held on February 23 at 10am CST and they always post their open meeting links and agendas to the ALSC space on ALA Connect, please be on the lookout for when that is posted and join us!
Projects, Partnerships and Letters of Support
Can I just say…wow! From our work with Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, to our more recent collaborations with Netflix, we continue to find opportunities to broadcast the work and expertise of our members and all children’s library professionals to wider audiences. There is so much more exciting work to read in this section and I hope you will take a few minutes to browse, while drinking your morning or mid-day beverage of choice.
ALSC President, Kirby McCurtis, will be highlighting some of the work presented in this report at our upcoming Community Forum, Our Work Matters: Advocating for Children’s Services, to be held on February 25th at 12:00pm CST. This forum is open to all ALSC members and it will be live captioned and recorded for later viewing.
So much can happen in 12 months! Please join me in being proud of the work being done on a national level to advocate for building a better future for all children through libraries.
Elizabeth Serrano (a.k.a. Elly) is ALSC’s Membership and Marketing Specialist. She can be reached at eserrano@ala.org. Please feel free to reach out to her to say hello, ask your ALSC questions, or to talk about Disney’s latest movie, Soul (she loved it, of course).