Farmer selected to present paper for YALSA’s Trends Impacting YA event at ALA Midwinter

CHICAGO – A Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Jury chose Dr. Lesley Farmer, who coordinates the Teacher Librarian program at California State University Long Beach, to present a paper at YALSA’s Trends Impacting YA Services session at the 2014 ALA Midwinter Meeting.   Farmer’s paper is entitled “Trends Impacting YA Services: Sex, Mind, and Body: How Guys and Girls Search for Health Information."  The Midwinter event, which is hosted by YALSA Past Presidents, will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014. 

Friends of YALSA funds one individual each year to come to ALA Midwinter to present a paper that in some way addresses a topic from YALSA’s Research Agenda.  In addition to presenting the paper at the Trends Impacting YA Services event, Farmer’s paper will also be published in a future issue of YALSA’s peer-reviewed, open source journal, The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults.  Farmer will receive up to $1,500 to help defray travel, registration and hotel costs.

Of her paper, Farmer says, “Teens need and want information about health issues, increasingly using digital resources.  Libraries provide a neutral safe venue for such information, and can guide teens in those resources.  Gender impacts the content, and how teens seek health information.  Technology use has gender factors that impact information seeking behaviors and health information needs of at-risk teen populations."

Shannon Peterson, YALSA president, hailed Farmer’s selection. “This is an exciting opportunity to learn more about gender issues of teen technology use to find health information. Farmer will also offer recommendations to insure attendee can provide optimal library services to address health information needs of all teens.”

To learn more about YALSA programs and events at the 2014 ALA Midwinter Meeting, visit http://tinyurl.com/YALSAmw14.

For more than 50 years, YALSA has worked to build the capacity of libraries and librarians to engage, serve and empower teens.  For more information about YALSA or to access national guidelines and other resources go to www.ala.org/yalsa, or contact the YALSA office by phone, (800) 545-2433, ext. 4390, or e-mail, yalsa@ala.org.