Author: Nina Lindsay

Blogger Nina Lindsay

Sharing Standards

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Group of people talking and sharing feedback

YALSA and AASL have each recently recently released new professional competencies and standards, and together with ALSC’s Competencies for Librarians Serving Children in Public Libraries, present a strong framework for how librarians are and should be serving youth today. YALSA’s Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff respond to new research, the realities of current staffing models, and the recent paradigm shift to a hands-on co-learning model of service between library staff and teens. Supplementary materials that support the competencies include twitter chats and free webinars beginning March 2018, and professional tools organized by competency area. AASL’s National School Library Standards provide a robust framework for learners, school librarians, and school libraries, working in an integrated fashion and resting upon a set of common beliefs. The Standards website provides multiple entry points, such as the Materials page with helpful one-pagers for stakeholders, advocates, and library and school staff. I find a…

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Blogger Nina Lindsay

Get Involved with ALSC Tomorrow!: Free Webinar, and Revised Volunteer Form

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Learn more about how to volunteer for ALSC Committees

I’ve enjoyed hearing from so many of you through the ALSC Committee Volunteer Form, and appreciate the choice you have made to engage with our association to contribute to our mission. I am now wrapping up my last appointments for the year, and in early 2018 ALSC President-Elect Jamie Campbell Naidoo will begin working on spring appointments for our many process committee (i.e. not the award or media-evaluation committees), with terms that start following Annual conference. Revised Committee Volunteer Form Opens Tomorrow

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Blogger Nina Lindsay

Doing it All: “Small”

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I’ve always lived and worked in urban spaces. While nearly 81% of the US population live in urban areas according to the 2010 census, my visit to the Association for Rural and Small Libraries conference in St. George UT in September made it clear how myopic it is exclude rural perspectives “by default” from professional conversations. I’ve since been thinking about how ALSC might better serve colleagues in rural communities, and all of us, by centering aspects of our work from a “small library” perspective, keeping in mind particular challenges that many of us work with:

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Blogger Nina Lindsay

Librarians & Labor

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I’m heading to the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL) conference in St. George UT this week.  I’m looking forward to listening, as I have always lived and worked in urban spaces.  In reaching out to members about this, I heard back privately from one who shared that “the most common experience shared by rural librarians is isolation: physically and professional.”  She went on to advocate for the value of peer mentorship, and pointed me to this guest post at Bryce Don’t Play, which highlights the stress of “solo” librarians.

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Blogger Nina Lindsay

Intellectual Freedom and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

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It is summer, and my libraries have been slinging lunches along with fun. We’ve been doing it for years, and it’s been hard for me to describe exactly why serving lunch in the library feels so right; until I read Mack Freedman’s post on Libraries and Summer Food Programs at ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom blog this May.   It had never occurred to me to look at food service through an Intellectual Freedom lens, but he points out accurately that these programs “enable a level of access to the library’s services that would otherwise be unavailable due to the effects that hunger can have on learning and involvement.” So I was glad to see ALA Council adopt Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Interpretations to the Library Bill of Rights at Annual conference.  It provides a framework for exploring why we provide the services we do in the way we do,…

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Awards & Scholarships

Silver and Gold: a Call for Volunteers

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“The job of a child is to learn as much as possible about the world through new eyes that cast no judgment. It is not that they cannot handle inconvenient truths; it is we as adults who shy away from controversial topics and feel uncomfortable — even ashamed.” This quote is from Javaka Steptoe’s 2017 Caldecott Medal Acceptance Speech, which I am still re-reading, along with his CSK Illustrator Award Acceptance Speech.   This particular quote is interesting to me because, taking it out of context as I have, I am curious about what each of us as librarians and educators who work with children and books imagine are the inconvenient truths we feel uncomfortable, “even ashamed,” in confronting. At the end of his speech, after giving thanks to Leo (and Diane) Dillon and Jerry Pinkney, the only other African Americans to receive the Caldecott Medal, he thanked his father John…

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ALA Annual 2017

Leading with ALSC

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Learn more about how to volunteer for ALSC Committees

As your ALSC President, I’m enjoying getting ready for Annual Conference by reading ALSC Committee Reports! No joking: it is exciting and humbling to see all of work so many of you are doing, everyday, while keeping your library doors open. Thanks to those  who’ve accepted committee assignments to begin in July.  As I posted in April, I am wowed by the number of great volunteers, which outweigh slots.  ALSC is in good shape!  Slots do arise throughout the year, and later this summer I’ll start looking at committees whose terms start in January (all of the award and media evaluation committees, as well as the Arbuthnot Honor Lecture, Children & Libraries Editorial Advisory, and Distinguished Service Award committees.) If you previously submitted the online volunteer form for any of these, I will be getting to it; if you have not yet, now through July is a good time to submit your volunteer form. Exploring…

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