{"id":12093,"date":"2015-12-16T11:25:07","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T16:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=12093"},"modified":"2015-12-16T11:24:56","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T16:24:56","slug":"odyssey-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/odyssey-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"My Odyssey Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was just invited to be part of the 2017 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/alsc\/awardsgrants\/bookmedia\/odysseyaward\">Odyssey Award<\/a> Committee (happy dance!) Do ya\u2019ll know this award? It gets the tiniest bit trumped by the big hitters, Newbery and Caldecott, but as an adult who loves to be on the receiving end of a story, I\u2019m pretty thrilled to be part of this committee that chooses the best audiobook produced for kids or teens each year. I once wrote a kind-of fan letter to an actor (Eric Singer) who narrated one of my favorite books (it\u2019s an adult title: The Dogs of Babel) and he actually responded! So yah, I get the fangirl element of audiobooks.<\/p>\n<p>Since this will be my first award-committee-experience, I\u2019m excited for sure but I\u2019m also a bit nervous.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the stuff I\u2019m thrilled about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Exposure to titles I might otherwise miss. It\u2019s hard to catch a glimpse of all the youth titles each year so this will be a great way to expand my radar.<\/li>\n<li>Ability to call \u2018listening to stories\u2019 official work. We all read on our own time for our work, but this feels official-er and there\u2019s a real honor attached to it!<\/li>\n<li>First time at both an ALA mid-winter and an ALA annual. I\u2019ve had a few close calls in the past (one year I was supposed to do a presentation with the famous David Lee King but there was a hiccup and it never happened) but have never gone to ALA in my 11+ years as a librarian. For shame! So it\u2019s finally happening and I can\u2019t wait to be totally enraptured!<\/li>\n<li>I am a poet and really feel like poetry is meant to be read aloud. So the whole oral tradition part of this work really taps into some of my other passions. I remember years ago, seeing Ira Glass from This American Life live and his whole talk centered around the power of stories and he used the classic One Thousand and One Arabian Nights to illustrate that stories can truly save lives. So YES to telling stories!<\/li>\n<li>I get to meet and work with librarians from around the country! It\u2019s always great to meet and chat with other librarians, hear other opinions and articulate my own thoughts and reactions.<\/li>\n<li>Florida and Georgia! Wahoo for the south! I\u2019m sorta north up in Pittsburgh so headin\u2019 down south will be delightful!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And here\u2019s the stuff I\u2019m nervous about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First time at both an ALA mid-winter and an ALA annual. I\u2019ve read a ton of How-To-Attend-ALA articles and blog posts and I think they\u2019ve gotten in my head! I\u2019m prepared to be completely overwhelmed during the day and holed up in my room breathing in lavender with a hot compress over my eyes each night.<\/li>\n<li>I\u2019m not worthy! I\u2019m not worthy! I\u2019m sure many of you understand this one. I usually kindly listen to that voice for a few minutes and then send it on its way. But it\u2019s definitely around. In looking at past winners (it\u2019s only been around since 2008) there were a number of titles that (blush) I didn\u2019t even realize had audio versions (gasp!) So I\u2019ll certainly be playing catch-up and will make sure to listen to as many past winners as I can.<\/li>\n<li>How will I know what\u2019s good? I\u2019m sure this at least crosses the minds of many committee members. But evaluating literature is serious business. You don\u2019t want to underthink it. You don\u2019t want to overthink it. There\u2019s some gut involved. Some critical eye. A nice cocktail of hearty thinking and feeling. Is there a support group for ALA committee members?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, onward! I won\u2019t make any puns or jokes relating to Homer\u2019s Odyssey and my own journey to and through this experience. Or will I\u2026.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*******************************************************************************<\/p>\n<p><em>Our guest blogger today is Kelley Beeson. Kelley is the Youth Services Department Head at the <a href=\"http:\/\/westernalleghenylibrary.org\/\">Western Allegheny Community Library<\/a>. She\u2019s been working in libraries since high school and her favorite book is Marcus Zusak\u2019s <i>The Book Thief<\/i>.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em class=\"wp-caption-text\">Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><i>If you\u2019d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:alscblog@gmail.com\">alscblog@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was just invited to be part of the 2017 Odyssey Award Committee (happy dance!) Do ya\u2019ll know this award? It gets the tiniest bit trumped by the big hitters, Newbery and Caldecott, but as an adult who loves to be on the receiving end of a story, I\u2019m pretty thrilled to be part of this committee that chooses the best audiobook produced for kids or teens each year. I once wrote a kind-of fan letter to an actor (Eric Singer) who narrated one of my favorite books (it\u2019s an adult title: The Dogs of Babel) and he actually responded! So yah, I get the fangirl element of audiobooks. Since this will be my first award-committee-experience, I\u2019m excited for sure but I\u2019m also a bit nervous. Here\u2019s the stuff I\u2019m thrilled about: Exposure to titles I might otherwise miss. It\u2019s hard to catch a glimpse of all the youth titles&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[62,134],"tags":[888],"class_list":["post-12093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-guest-blogger","tag-odyssey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}