Pursuing excellence for library service to children
For the past three years, I served as the new-to-ALSC Board Member. It was perhaps the most humbling, amazing, and unexpected experience of my professional career. Looking ahead to the transition of new Board members at ALA in Philadelphia, I’m incredibly grateful. Today, I’m sharing a few lessons from my Board tenure.
Have you been thinking about growing your skills and experience as a leader? Perhaps you’ve become interested in supervisory or management positions, but you don’t yet have the budgetary or strategic project management experience you need to land that next role. Regardless of whether you’re looking to grow in your current role or to set yourself up for the next step in your career, I’m here to tell you that serving as part of the ALSC Board is a phenomenal (and fun!) way to gain both experience and confidence.
One of the things I loved about ALA’s Virtual Event today was that I saw and heard mention of some of our ALSC leaders! We saw ALSC President-Elect, Kirby McCurtis, in conversation with Opening Session speaker, Misty Copeland! Wasn’t that a nice surprise? I also briefly attended the Serving the Transgender Community: It’s More than Just Bathrooms! session where a panelist mentioned Immediate Past-President, Dr. Jamie Naidoo, and his work and training’s on serving LGBTQ+ families in the library. Here is a peer-reviewed Children & Libraries article by Jamie published in 2018. I thought it was really powerful to see our ALSC leadership present in these conversations on equity, diversity, and inclusion. With a new service year coming up, I think this is a good time to remind ALSC members that our board meetings are open to all. We always post our schedules, links to register, and documents online…
In 2016 the ALSC Board of Directors began work on a new 2017-2020 Strategic Plan. As many of you know, Strategic Plans are generally for 5 years, but ALSC decided that a 3 year plan gave our organization the opportunity to review, refresh and revise in a shorter time frame. This is not to say that we haven’t been doing this during the 3 year period – we have! The Strategic Plan is not a document we put together and put away; it’s a living document. A Strategic Plan Implementation Progress Report is written four times a year, updating the Board and membership where we are in achieving our goals.
Hello everyone! I hope that you are staying safe and warm wherever this post may find you. I also trust that those who attended Midwinter have finally all made it back home without further incident, particularly those of you who were stranded at airports waiting for flights, any flights, that would get you home. Since midwinter there has been considerable unpacking – literally and metaphorically. Some of you are unpacking suitcases full of books, posters, and other exciting finds from the exhibits, along with meeting notes and your conference clothes. Many people have also been unpacking all those thoughts swirling around in your head from networking, engaging sessions and keynotes, committee meetings, encounters with colleagues, and the barrage of online conversations related to the Youth Media Awards (YMAs) and the much needed conversations about walking the walk to ensure everyone is treated equitably and humanely. The latter stemming from multiple…
ALSC’s Busy Worker Bees What’s that sound? Do you hear it? Sounds like a buzz or maybe a hum. If you think it is a colony of busy bees you are 100% correct – ALSC Member Busy Worker Bees! With summer reading in full force and school (public and university) starting for others, ALSC members are hard at work engaging their communities to build healthy, successful futures for all children. At the same time, hundreds of you are also serving on ALSC process and award committees, moving the association’s work forward. In July many process committee members began new appointments and these committees started examining current and future projects to prioritize their work. I have been hearing from committees about some of their work and reading with interest the blog posts of various committees. As always, I’m amazed and humbled to be working alongside all of you – our awesome…
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…
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?