It began immediately after the Youth Media Awards were announced on Monday. Quiet whispers to friends and colleagues: “I was surprised by this committee’s choice” and “Why wasn’t this title selected?” and “How could that title have won?” and “My pick didn’t win and it should have!” While I’ve often heard this kind of discussion after the announcement, I haven’t always had the words to articulate a response. But this year’s announcements for me were colored by a very new and different experience — on Friday, I had the great privilege of attending ALSC’s 2016 Morris Seminar. Here are some of the things I learned: Every book has faults. It’s about what book rises to the top of the pile. Only discuss the books on the table. You can’t talk about books from previous years. When you read independently, you read in a vacuum. The committee as a whole is…
Tag: 2016 ALA Midwinter Meeting
2016 ALSC Emerging Leaders Team D at #alamw16
Today I got a chance to finally meet the 2016 ALSC Emerging Leader Team D face-t0-face. Over the next six months, these five individuals will be performing an environmental scan for ALSC. I’ll be working with them in the capacity of staff liaison and it’s one of the favorite parts of my job. Every year, Emerging Leaders bring so much energy and passion to the work of our association. Their project is for them to analyze “trends, ideas, and influences to help ALSC prepare for the future needs of members and the direction of the profession.” Who better to do that then a group of forward-thinking and Emerging Leaders!? I can’t wait to get started. By the way, this project may sound familiar. An ALSC Emerging Leader project team performed this same environmental scan back in 2010. We liked it so much we asked a new group to do it again!
Welcome to 2016 & See You at Midwinter!
Cheer, cheer, cheer the year, A new one’s just begun. Celebrate with all your friends, Let’s go have some fun! Clap, clap, clap your hands, A brand new year is here. Learning, laughing, singing, clapping, Through another year. –Anonymous (to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”) Happy New Year, everyone! Seeing out the old year, one of my final presidential activities of 2015 was also one of the most interesting. I was very happy to represent ALSC at the “Breakthroughs in Parent Engagement and Early Literacy” forum, presented by New America and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, sponsored by the Joyce Foundation, and held here in Chicago at Erikson Institute’s Technology in Early Childhood (TEC) Center. It was led by Lisa Guernsey and Michael Levine, authors of the book Tap, Click, Read: Growing Readers in a World of Screens, which Lisa talked about when she presented the keynote at…
Apply for the 2016 Bill Morris Seminar
ALSC is now seeking applications for the 2016 ALSC Bill Morris Seminar to be held on Friday, January 8, 2016, prior to the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston, Ma. The seminar will be facilitated by ALSC member leaders including past committee members and chairs of evaluation committees, and will focus on children’s book and media evaluation. The purpose of the Bill Morris Seminar: Book Evaluation Training is to honor and support William C. Morris’ dedication to connecting librarians, and ultimately children, with excellent children’s books. This seminar will bring new ALSC members and members with limited evaluation experience together with those who have served on ALSC’s media evaluation committees in an environment to train and mentor them in the group process and in children’s media evaluation techniques. The seminar will result in new and emerging leaders for future ALSC evaluation committees. The William C. Morris Endowment was established in 2000…