ALSC President's page
About Mary Fellows
ALSC Past Presidents
ALSC Annual Report 2010-11
Welcome home!
If you aspire to create a better future for children through libraries, you have found your home: ALSC. We help children and tweens transform into thoughtful and confident adults through engaging them with the best possible materials, the best programs, and the best librarian guides.
Our ALSC family has children's and youth services librarians, youth literature experts, publishers, education and library school faculty members, and others who seek to create better library services and materials for all children. If you care about children and libraries, there’s a place set for you at our table.
It’s my privilege this year as president to help our association move forward, ensuring good decisions and anticipating changes so that the children we serve have the best we can bring.
ALSC presidents often choose themes for their year. My theme is “Communicate Value.” Both value and communication are essential to get to that better future for children through libraries. If we don’t deliver value in our work, any communication about what we do is simply hot air. If we add value but never educate decision-makers about our essential work, then we are going the way of the woolly mammoth.
One way to ensure that we’re delivering value is through close, regular contact with stakeholders. This year, ALSC will be strengthening our stakeholder engagement through:
Expanded opportunities for member participation in the work of the association. Our “Meta(morphosis) Team” will spearhead the work of transforming most process committees to virtual operation. This creates many opportunities for deeper, meaningful participation by members who cannot attend conferences.
New tools to help us become more proficient at working virtually. The Meta Team is also beckoning us into the future by creating a virtual, reusable training tool. This tool will expand members’ skills in virtual group process.
Invigorated social media connections between members and ALSC leadership. Regular ALSC blog posts, Facebook posts, tweets, ALA Connect discussions, and live chats keep you informed and involved.
New resources and learning opportunities to build member expertise in serving tweens. A webinar or online course on tween services, a new committee focused on materials for 9-12 year-olds and an ALSC/YALSA presidents’ program at Annual Conference 2012 on tweens are all in the works this year.
A place to tell your story. True stories give flesh and bones to abstract concepts and help us communicate to decision makers the value of what we do. We’ll have virtual opportunities for you to share your stories this coming this year and be inspired by the stories of others!
