Youth Media Awards announcement to take place on January 26, 2009

Join thousands as ALA, ALSC and YALSA unveil the best of the best in children’s and young adult literature and media

(CHICAGO) The American Library Association (ALA) will provide a free live Webcast of its national announcement of the top books and media for children and young adults on January 26 at 7:45 a.m. MT. The award announcements are made as part of the ALA Midwinter Meeting, which will bring together more than 10,000 librarians, publishers, authors and guests in Denver from January 23 to 28.

Unikron, a streaming content provider, will host the ALA Youth Media Awards Webcast. Online visitors will be able to view the live Webcast the morning of the announcements by going to http://www.unikron.com/clients/ala-webcast-2009. This link is not yet live, but those interested in following the action online should bookmark and use the URL. The number of available connections for the Webcast will be limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.

ALA will instantly announce winners of the 2009 Youth Media Awards using the micro-blogging service Twitter. For the first time ever, members can follow the Youth Media Awards at http://twitter.com/ALAyma , and receive live updates on award winners as they are announced during the ceremony. Users of Twitter can read and follow posts — referred to as 'tweets'—instantly, either through ALA's Twitter page, RSS, SMS Text Messaging (if enabled), or social networking sites such as Facebook, with the Twitter add-on.

In addition, the Youth Media Awards now has a home on Facebook, which can be found at http://www.facebook.com/pages/ALA-Youth-Media-Awards/43002248757# . Featuring the RSS feed from the Youth Media Awards Twitter site, the page also has videos, photos, and information about the awards.

The ALA Island in Second Life will also broadcast an encore presentation of the Youth Media Awards Webcast. Visitors can take advantage of in-world viewing later in the day on the ALA Island at the Main Stage.

For ALA Midwinter Meeting participants, the press conference will be held in the Colorado Convention Center in the Four Seasons Ballroom. Doors will open at 7:30 a.m. MT.

Awards announced on January 26, 2009 include:

Alex Awards for the best adult books that appeal to teen audience
Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's video
Coretta Scott King Book Awards honors African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults that demonstrate sensitivity to "the African American experience via literature and illustration."
John Newbery Medal honors the author of the year's most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Award honors an author or illustrator whose books have made a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.
Margaret A. Edwards Award honors an author's lifetime contribution in writing for young adults as well as a specific body of his or her work.
May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award recognizes an author, critic, librarian, historian, or teacher of children's literature, who then presents a paper, considered to be a significant contribution to the field of children's literature, at a winning host site.
Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature written for young adults
Mildred L. Batchelder Award is presented to an American publisher for the most outstanding book originally published in a country other than the United States in a language other than English and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States.
Odyssey Award is presented to the producer of the best audiobook produced for children and/or young adults available in English in the United States.
Pura Belpré Award recognizes Latino/Latina writers and illustrators whose work best portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.
Randolph Caldecott Medal honors the illustrator of the year's most distinguished American picture book for children.
Robert F. Sibert Medal honors an author, illustrator and/or photographer of the most distinguished informational book published for children.
Schneider Family Book Award for books that embody an artistic expression of the disability experience.
Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is presented annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished book for beginning readers published in English in the United States.
William C. Morris Award begins in 2009, honoring a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature.

The press release announcing all of the winners will be posted in the Youth Media Awards Press Kit at http://www.ala.org/yma prior to 10:30 a.m. MT.

Adult book awards also announced during the conference include: Notable Books for Adults, the Black Caucus of the ALA Literary Awards and the Stonewall Awards. For more information, please visit http://www.ala.org/ala/awardsgrants/index.cfm.

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