Serving as the ALSC President for 2022-2023 has been a humbling experience in many ways, not the least of which is because every day I have reminders that it is the dedicated work and input of members–all volunteers!–that allows us to set, work toward, and accomplish our goals. It’s incredibly rewarding to see the ways in which members add their talents and voices to the whole–and I want to invite YOU to add your voice to the chorus as well!
Category: Community Forum
The Digital Tools of an ALSC Virtual Committee
Hello! Manuela Aronofsky and Tina Bartholoma here. We’re the current co-chairs of the ALSC Children and Technology Committee. The ALSC C&T Committee is a virtual committee, so to stay connected and collaborate with members across time zones, we have adopted a handful of favorite digital tools. Today we will share what they are and how we use them for our committee work.
ALSC Happenings – Engage with us!
The fall season is a busy, busy time of year for ALSC! I’m taking this blog post opportunity to update you on a few upcoming opportunities for engagement: ALSC Chat: Our School Age Programs and Services Committee is hosting an ALSC chat on Monday at 4pm! The chat will focus on how public and school library workers are supporting students this school year. ALSC Community Forum (ALA member login required): Our members have important business coming to the ballot next year! It’s explained a bit more in a recent blog post, and our Community Forum on Wednesday will aim to support our members’ understanding of these ballot items to help them make an informed vote. It will be recorded and made available shortly after for members who are unable to attend live. The 2021 Children’s Literature Lecture Celebration honoring the work of Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop will take place on…
Community Assessment for Inclusive Library Services
Leveraging partnerships is essential to supporting the development and growth of new programs and services for children with disabilities. One of the best things you can do when serving an undeserved population like families with children with disabilities is to collaborate with other local organizations to gather community feedback about people’s perceptions and experiences of your library. Whether you decide to take a more formal or an informal approach in gathering information, performing a comprehensive community assessment is a necessary first step in growing this area of service. Assessing your community helps identify opportunities and gaps in service for different age groups. It can help you learn about what types of programs your library could be offering to families with children with disabilities. This process can also help you determine what the best and most accessible mode of communication is for families, or identify areas for improvement in your library’s…
ALSC Community Forum: Inclusive Spaces and Services for Children of All Abilities
ALSC Community Forum January 10, 2018 @ 3PM (Central) Topic: Inclusive Spaces and Services for Children of All Abilities Jason Driver, Renee Grassi, Eva Thaler-Sroussi, and ALSC President Nina Lindsay will be hosting an ALSC Community Forum live chat on the topic of Inclusive Spaces and Services for Children of All Abilities. This forum will include a live text discussion with the opportunity to ask questions to our presenters. In the past 5 years alone, the topic of inclusion, accessibility, and youth librarianship has moved forward in positive and innovative ways. This discussion will focus on tangible practices for inclusion of children of all abilities in library spaces and services. What can we do to make our youth departments, our branches, or our libraries more welcoming to children and their families? What have we learned from our successes and our failures in programs and services?…
Social Justice Practice in Youth Librarianship – #ALSCForum Archive
On August 14th ALSC held a community forum on Social Justice Practice in Youth Librarianship. The forum was perfect in that it discussed a crucial topic in librarianship that touches on all of our objectives from our 2017-2020 Strategic Plan. Diversity, Inclusion and Advocacy Dr. Nicole A. Cooke, an Assistant Professor and MS/LIS Program Director at the School of Information Sciences, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, talked about her courses and teachings on how to have “hard conversations” on race, diversity, and social justice. She explains that she helps prepare her students to be culturally competent and “be comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable.” She presented us with, Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race by Derald Wing Sue, as a guide on how to have these conversations about race and that if we remain silent, we “allow the conversation to happen without…
Community Forum on Digital Literacy, Digital Citizenship for Children in Libraries
The ALSC Board of Directors and 2017 ALSC President Nina Lindsay will be co-hosting an ALSC/AASL Collaborative Community Forum live chat on the topic of Digital Literacy, Digital Citizenship for Children in Libraries. The forum will be held on Thursday, March 23, 2017 at: 1 pm Eastern 12 pm Central 11 am Mountain 10 am Pacific With library and education funding and policy in question, who is teaching children information literacy–where and how? From “fake news” to new privacy concerns, from government “data rescue” to the threat to intellectual freedom with loss of data and access to broadband, what on-the-ground strategies can library staff in public and school libraries employ to prepare children to be digitally literate citizens? This ALSC Community Forum will be jointly hosted by ALSC’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Directors. We are delighted to open this forum to both divisions’ members. Helpful Resources…
Find Your Footing Despite the Flood of Fake News
Yipes! Does it seem like “fake news” is getting more prevalent? Are you feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, confused about how to help your patrons navigate this unstable landscape? Photo courtesy of Walt Stoneburner