ALA in DC

At the end of June I attended the ALA annual conference in DC. Since then I have been working on my report and finally done!! Since my interoffice email is down I'm going to post it! Enjoy!

Day 1

YALSA 101

YALSA 101 was the first program I attended. All of the major ALA sections were having 101 programs for new members or older members who have never attended ALA before. I was expecting YALSA to explain how to pick the right programs to go to, how to figure out the shuttle routes and basically the bare bones of how to have a successful ALA conference. YALSA 101 was not like that at all. There was a panel of speakers, president-elect, leaving president, editor-in-chief of YALS: Young Adult Library Services and the person who is in charge of the YALSA blogsite. They talked about how to get involved with YALSA, how to publish with YALSA and the future of YALSA as they see it. If one wants to get involved with YALSA there is a volunteer form online, http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/joinus/committeevolunteer.htm. You fill it out and basically wait to hear back from a YALSA committee member. There are major committees like Best Books for Young Adults or the Printz Awards, but usually a new member does not get on one of those committees right of the bat. There are virtual committees for members who cannot attend conferences or who do not have a lot of time to dedicate to a committee. To publish in YALS or with YALSA there is also a form online, http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/yalsapubs/publications.htm. To post or comment on YALSA’s blog you can here http://blogs.ala.org/yalsa.php. This was all good information to have, but not exactly what I needed or expected. YALSA 101 was the only 101 I planned on attended and was a little upset about that.

Hollywood Librarian

I went to the premier showing of the Hollywood Librarian Friday night. While most of the movie was good and interesting, I had some big problems with it. If you don’t know, the Hollywood Librarian is the first full-length documentary film to focus on the work and lives of librarians by combining unique and charming film clips, humor and critical analysis of the popular image of librarians. Well, there was some movie clips that were funny and touching, but not barely enough. There were interviews with professionals from the public, academic and specialized fields of library services. The movie also covered prison libraries, John Steinbeck, library closings and Andrew Carnegie. It mentioned that $250 million federal dollars go to libraries every year, and that is what we spend in Iraq each day. There was a cameo from one of our own staff members, Elsworth Rockefeller! None of these things, while fun, did not have anything to with librarian perceptions in the movies.
Once again my major complaint is that we are preaching to the choir! If this movie is supposed to change peoples minds and open up their eyes to the danger most libraries in with low funding and staff shortages, showing it to librarians is not the way to go. Show it at indie movie film festivals, make copies and have them circulate through the public libraries of America, convince PBS to air it. Let the masses know! During 2007 Banned Book Week Libraries can show this documentary for free (no licensing fee), but must charge audience members to come and see the film. If we are interested in doing this I can sign us up. For more information go to: http://www.hollywoodlibrarian.com/index.html.

Day 2

Babies & Books Beyond the Library: Developing an Early Literacy Campaign

The Brooklyn Public Library a few years ago came up with an early literacy program called First Five Years, http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/first5years/. The First Five Years at the Brooklyn Public Library is an inventive plan, which incorporates a variety of early literacy programs and services for children birth through age five. It’s available at all the Brooklyn Public Library’s. They have programs for children as well as their caregivers. Some of the programs are Story Play where babies to the children of five years old learn literacy and social skills through play and Toddler Time in which children from 18 months to 3 years old. Brooklyn also has bedtime story programs, parent workshops, DVD’s about the program, author visits and children concerts. Brooklyn Public showed us snippets from the informational DVD. One of the things from the DVD that stuck with me was to keep reading to children while they wonder. Toddlers multitask! If they start of sitting in your lap listening to you read, then get up and walk around the room, keep reading. It may not seem like it, but they are still listening. If you make them sit still and listen, they will disengage from the book. If you allow them to look at other things or do other things they will still have there engagement with the story. I started thinking about the Head Start storytimes I do and how the three year olds can’t sit still and need to get up. The teachers tell them to sit down and pay attention. All the child is now thinking is when they can get up and do something else. They are no longer engaged in the story.
The Brooklyn Public wanted to get the word out for this new great public service. They spent with gifts, partnerships, sponsors, in-kind support and through their own budget $284,420.00 on promotion. They have giveaways (tote bags, sippy cups, bibs, placemats, etc.), postcards, bookmarks and brochures in six different languages, bus shelter posters and ad placements on the radio and television. Brooklyn had networking breakfasts to let the community heads know what they were doing and asking for their support. They had a huge launching party with food, giveaways, authors and illustrators at all of the 60 branches. The program is a success and growing strong. I have the power point presentation, placemat, brochures, info booklet, booklist and a list of professional articles for librarians who are working with children 0-24 months.
There was another speaker at the program, but only had a few moments to talk due to Brooklyn Public talked for the majority of the time.

YALSA Celebrating Excellence in Audiobooks for Children and Young Adults

I love audiobooks and was extremely excited about this program!! I thought the program would be YALSA and ALSC members, but when entered the room there was an all star panel of Authors. There was Bruce Coville, Judy Blume, John Green and Jack Gantos. I cannot do the presentation justice. All the authors were so wonderful talking about how audiobooks have affected their lives and the way they write. The powers that be podcasted the program and to listen just click here: http://plablog.org/2007/06/celebrating-excellence-in-audiobooks-for-children-and-young-adults.html. Basically they talked about the importance of audiobooks and how now that many are downloadable listening can be a group activity. The moderator of the program talked about the new major ALA book award, the Odyssey award. The Odyssey award is
the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults available in English in the United States. I’m so excited about this award, and wish to be on the committee one day! I have information about this program and new audiobooks coming out within the next year.

Teen Graphic Novels: Maintaining Your Collection for Maximum Impact

After lunch I decided to go to a Graphic Novel program. As a Children/Tween librarian I thought it would be good to know more about graphic novels. I’ve read them, but don’t really like them as a genre, don’t get me started on Manga. After entering the room and sitting down the moderator said that if you wanted to know about Graphic Novels or great Graphic Novels to read or how to start a Graphic Novel collection this is not the program you want to be in. It was only for maintaining a thriving Graphic Novel collection. That is not at all what I wanted so I left and went to explore the exhibits.



Picture Books for Older Readers

Regardless of the speaker, this program was excellent! I have decided that I want/need to do a program, display, class or series of picture books under the title “Picture Books are Not Just for Babies”. There are some moving, emotional picture books like Walter Dean Myers Patrol: an American Soldier in Vietnam. Another great book is The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo by Tom Feelings. I cry every time I read it. These are over looked because they are picture books and must be babyish. There are excellent biographies like Starry Messenger about Galileo and Joan of Arc: The Lily Maid. Hard and controversial topics are addressed, in my opinion, sometimes much better in picture book form, like The House that Crack Built and Rose Blanche. The illustrations are so complicated, beautiful, clever and emotional, that a younger audience would not understand or appreciate these books.
The speaker spoke extremely fast and jumped from topic to topic. Her handouts were 13 pages but the first page was nine and the last was eight. She had top picture books separated by the year they were published, but covered them by topic. I could not keep up with her. I do have the booklist as well as a listing of good books and articles recommended on picture books for older children and teens. She also did comment that people in the know thought that w/ the publication of The Invention of Hugo Cabret was going to be the hands-down best book of 2007 incorporating illustrations and text in a brand new way, but there is book, which came from Australia, titled The Arrival which will rock the way we read books. I have a galley of The Arrival if anyone wants to read it!

Day 3

YALSA YA Author Breakfast

This was very exciting too!!! I thought there were only going to be a few authors there but I was wrong. 22 authors including Walter Dean Myers, Lois Lowry, Chris Crutcher and MT Anderson. The way it worked was you sat at a table and the authors would go from table to table, like speed dating, for about 5 minutes. Each table should have seen about 10-15 authors each, but it didn’t work that way. First Jack Gantos was supposed to start at my table, but was late and confused and went to another table. Instead of the authors moving down a vertical line some went horizontal or in order that only made sense to them. These are teen and children authors after all. After getting skipped a few times people at my table went and stole authors from other tables, flagged them down or waved money in the air to seduce them into coming over to us. The authors that sat with us were Carolyn Mackler (The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things), Jack Gantos (Hole in My Life), Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese), Sonya Harnett (Surrender), Garret Frymann-Weyr (My Heartbeat) and Walter Dean Myers (Monster) shook our hands. Here is a podcast of the breakfast http://blogs.ala.org/yalsa.php?cat=171 and photos as well
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yalsa/.

ALA Annual Conference Fall 2007 Preview

Random House had a promo-program for all of their elite children and teen titles coming out in the fall of 2007. They make each and everyone sound great, but I can’t tell you about them all so here are a few that I can’t wait to read! Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf by Judy Sierra, who brought us Wild About Books. BB Wolf is invited to tea at the library and needs to behave. He makes up a song about having fun, but not biting anyone. When Randolph Turned Rotten in this picture book Randolph’s best friend gets invited to a party and he does not. Instead of being happy for his friend Randolph turns nasty. In the end he realizes that you need to be happy and supportive for your friends even when things did not go well for you. The Hound of Rowan is like a Harry Potter meets X-men! Definitely a great read for boys and reluctant readers. Max is living in the suburbs when he discovers a Celtic tapestry and whole other world. This is the first in the trilogy. Taken is the new book by Edward Bloor. In 2035 children are taken on a regular basis and their families have 24 hours to live, but we come in with Charity Meyers only having 12 hours to go. There is a family secret and who really wanted her taken? Before I Die is a story about 16 year old Tessa. She is dying of cancer. She makes a list of things she wants to do before she dies. Of course on the top of a 16 year olds dying list is to have sex. Does she? Is it really what she thought it would be? What else is on the list? Last but not least is Love, Stargirl. Stargirl is one of those people we all had the courage to be. She leaves her first book, narrated by her boyfriend Leo, dancing into the night. In Love, Stargirl it turns out her parents moved to Pennsylvania and the girl herself narrates. I have the new book packet if anyone wants to have a look.

Exhibits

I spent the rest of the day hitting exhibits! There were over 4000 vendors at the convention center to see. I came up with a plan. There were people outside handing coupon books for the exhibits on Friday. Friday night I went through the book and pulled out entry forms and free giveaways for the booths that looked interesting. Also at registration, each person was a YALSA Teen Read Week Passport. You needed to go to all of the booths in the passport book and get a sticker that says “I support Teen Read Week”. Once your passport book is full, you presented it to a YALSA member at their booth and were then entered into a raffle. I did not win anything for OCL, but hopefully they will send us free promo stuff for Teen Read Week 2007. So armed with my coupons and the passport I made my way through most of the vendors. It took me two days to finish. Some of the useful things I did pick-up were guides to using graphic novels in the classroom (or library), Choose Your Own Adventure fall 2007 catalog, booktalk postcards for some new and great books (like Clementine, Rules and Life as We Knew It), first chapter teasers (like Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians) and comic books signed by the authors! I did win three books and a nylon backpack from Newmarket Press. They do, along with other things, novels based on screenplays. They sent me the novel Gracie based on the movie that came out June 1st with a backpack to match. The other books are The New Totally Awesome Business Book for Kids and The New Totally Awesome Money Book for Kids. These books are on my desk and will be moved shortly into the book giveaway cabinet. I picked-up flyers, bags, giveaways, galleys and lots lots more. I’m a sucker for free stuff.

Day 4

Best Books for Young Adults 2008

I thought this program was going to be the BBYA committee talking about the best YA books for 2008. The nominations why they are so good, but that was not the case. There was a list of the books and table displays of the books and the committee was going to be discussing these books, but to each other like in a debate, not too the audience. I could have sat there silently and listen to the committee discuss the books or leave. I left with the list.

How to be Popular and Smart! YALSA’s Popular Paperback List

This was the perfect way to end the conference. A panel of present and former Popular Paperbacks discussed their favorite lists. I love the process the committee uses. They will not re-use the same list genre for like seven years or repeat the same title on the list for about the same time period. The list shapes the kinds of books chosen, but then the books shape the title of the list. For example in 2005 two of the lists are “Own Your Freak” and “All Kinds of Creepy”. “Own Your Freak” started out as outcast books, but turned into a list about embracing your individuality and loving them! “All Kinds of Creepy” was supposed to be about horror books, but what is scary to one may not be to another. In 2007 a list humorous paperbacks is titled “What’s So Funny?” for the same reason. I am keen on the “Get Creative” list from 2007. There is mixture of non-fiction hobby books and fictional books that have hobbies as the leading force in them. Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt is a book that I have put on hold and a program I’m dying to do with my Tween clubs. Chicks with Sticks (It’s a Purl Thing) is a book about four unlikely friends who met while taking beginning knitting at a yarn store. I would like to have a series of programs where I teach girls to knit while we discuss the book.


This is the end of my ALA tale. I had tons of fun and hope to incorporate many of the things I learned into OCL programming.