Scales is 2016 ALSC Distinguished Service Award recipient

BOSTON – Pat Scales is the 2016 recipient of the Association for Library Service to Children’s (ALSC) Distinguished Service Award. This prestigious award honors an individual who has made significant contributions to library service to children and to ALSC.

This year’s recipient, Pat Scales, is a former middle school and high school librarian who is an independent consultant, author and active member of ALSC and ALA. 

Throughout her career, Scales has been a passionate advocate for children’s intellectual freedom. She works to educate librarians, teachers and parents on how to talk about books and teach life lessons through sharing books.

Scales’ involvement with children, libraries and ALSC spans 38 years.  She served as ALSC President in 2008-2009 and also served as chair of many ALSC award committees, including the Newbery, Caldecott, and Wilder award committees. “My first ALA was in 1977, and I learned at that conference that ALSC was my professional home,” said Scales. “My work with intellectual freedom has been for the thousands of students that I have served and the youth of this nation who deserve the right for free expression in its many forms. ALSC has given me the platform for this work.”

As an authority on censorship and children’s literature, she has published three books and is a contributor for Random House, School Library Journal, and Book Links.  She has also been called upon as an expert witness by ALA to defend the Library Bill of Rights in book challenges. 

 “Pat Scales is not only a champion for children’s freedom to read,” said chair Katrina Hartz Taylor, “but she is also a champion for the teachers, librarians, and authors who provide the array of books that children need in order to grow and understand their world.”

 ALSC is pleased to honor Pat Scales with the 2016 Distinguished Service Award.

ALSC, a division of the ALA, is the world’s largest organization dedicated to the support and enhancement of library service to children. With a network of more than 4,000 children’s and youth librarians, literature experts, publishers and educational faculty, ALSC is committed to creating a better future for children through libraries. To learn more about ALSC, visit ALSC’s website at www.ala.org/alsc.

The 2016 ALSC Distinguished Service Award Committee includes: Chair, Katrina Hartz Taylor, Saint Paul (Minnesota) Public Library; Carolyn R. Angus, Mountain View, California; Connie J. Champlin, Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Julie Corsaro, Williamsburg, Virginia; Ellen G. Fader, Portland, Oregon.