Membership Benefits

Find out more about the benefits of YALSA membership, including discounts, grants and scholarships, volunteer opportunities, networking, and publications

ALA/YALSA Members Only Benefits

In addition to benefits from ALA, YALSA offers its members exclusive benefits, including discounts on products, publications, courses, and events; awards and grants; networking and professional development tools; publications; and more. Questions about member benefits can be directed to Letitia Smith, YALSA’s Membership Coordinator, at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4390, or lsmith@ala.org

Invest in your career and join YALSA and ALA today! Learn more about membership, including pricing and how to join.

Discounts

Only YALSA members enjoy the following discounts:

Awards, Contests, Grants, and Stipends

YALSA offers more than $195,000 in awards, contests, grants, stipends, and scholarships exclusively to its members each year:

  • YALSA gives out more than $195,000 in annual member awards and grants each year for travel, research, collection development and more
  • YALSA regularly offers contests and stipends for travel, advocacy efforts, strategic thinking, and more
  • YALSA annually supports a Spectrum Scholar, to encourage members of a diverse background to enter the profession, and the Emerging Leaders program, which fast-tracks promising new ALA members into leadership positions
  • ALA offers more than 60 grants and fellowships for which YALSA members can apply.

Networking and Professional Development

For career advancement and networking, YALSA members have an advantage over nonmembers through exclusive access to:

  • ALA Connect, ALA's collaborative online community
  • Volunteer opportunities with YALSA's member groups, including advisory boards, book and media award committees, process committees, juries, and task forces.
  • Leadership opportunities, including publishing and presenting programs and workshops
  • A YALSA-sponsored  mentoring program, pairing new and experienced librarians together so both can share their knowledge
  • Free professional development resources created by YALSA, including, free access to a live webinar each month, 40+ webinars on demand (a $760 value) via the YALSA E-Learning Library, free handouts, and information on jobs.
  • Support and guidance, including intellectual freedom and book challenge issues

Publications and Resources

YALSA members receive free access to exclusive publications:

Corporate Member Benefits

As a benefit of corporate membership in YALSA, each corporate member is entitled to one spotlight per year in YALSA’s monthly E-News, which is emailed to all YALSA members.  Content for the E-News must be received by the third Tues. of the month in order to be placed in the following month’s E-news.  Corporate members are welcome to provide some or all of the following for the spotlight:

  • a blurb about their company of up to 100 words
  • a URL to your site or Facebook page
  • your Twitter handle
  • a .jpg file of your logo

Please note that the intention of the spotlight is to raise general awareness among YALSA members about your organization and it is not intended to be an advertisement for a particular product or service.  Companies interested in advertising can view the range of options available via YALSA’s Media and Sponsorship Kit (pdf).