Author: ALSC Membership Committee

Looking to make worthwhile connections AND contributions? Seeking summer fun and enrichment? Perhaps you just want to familiarize yourself with the ALSC community. Join us May 18th for a virtual networking opportunity to discover the power of #weareALSC. There will be four different networking sessions built into this one virtual afternoon!

As I write this, I am currently the co-chair of the Membership Committee, in the second year of my two-year term. Before this, I served a two-year term as a member of the Membership Committee. Over the course of my four years on the committee, I have written six blog posts for the monthly Membership Committee slot. Each of those blog posts has focused on the amazing work of the committee, including impressive pivots made by ALSC to keep membership engaged during the early days of COVID, promotions for upcoming member engagement events, calls for ideas for new ways to engage with each other when faced with Zoom fatigue, and a three-part series highlighting some of the BIPOC New Members cohort that the Membership Committee has been supporting for the last two-plus years.

I joined ALSC in 2016. I was just a first semester graduate student with very little idea of what to expect as a children’s librarian. One of the coordinators in my grad school program had mentioned that ALSC had a fantastic student rate, so I went for it. (It’s only $20!) Turns out, it was a great choice. I took several (as you may have guessed) children and youth specific courses in grad school that heavily used ALSC data and research. At this point, I was somewhat familiar with navigating the website and finding what information I needed to find. 

In 2020, the American Library Association (ALA) implemented a commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion by opening the door to three things: 

It is the most magical time of the year, and no one knows this better than those of us who work with children in libraries. We are the people who throw around words like “Caldecott,” “Newbery,” and “Belpré” with ease and pour over all the lists the day they come out (if we didn’t wake up early to watch the announcements in person!).  The day the Youth Media Awards are announced is basically the children’s librarian Super Bowl – even if you don’t really care about the results, you better look up the winners, so that you know what you are talking about when your coworkers bring the awards up. You can view the 2023 award winners now!

As ALSC members around the country prepare to travel to New Orleans for LibLearnX, or to tune into the Youth Media Awards virtually, we invite them all to attend the Winter ALSC Membership Gathering on Thursday, January 19th at 3:00 PM Eastern.  Register Here

In September, I had the opportunity to attend Utah Library Association’s Annual Fall Workshop. During the keynote speech, given by Rebekah Cummings, a librarian at the University of Utah’s Marriott Library, I found myself with tears streaming down my face. At one point during her talk she asked us to turn to our neighbor and state three things that inspire us. I struggled to come up with a single answer. The only reason why that I could come up with is the idea that I am simply burnt out. 

In the spring of 2021, the Membership Committee undertook a project to intentionally recruit new ALSC members, specifically those who are paraprofessionals or students, and who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color). In alignment with ALSC’s strategic objective of increasing the intentional recruitment and retention of a diverse membership while reducing barriers to participation, 10 BIPOC library students and 10 BIPOC paraprofessionals/library support staff members were selected to receive two year ALA and ALSC memberships, along with opportunities for meaningful engagement including: regular virtual meetings with other recipients, activities and discussions, mentorship, the opportunity to shadow committees, and more.