YALSA President's Page

Jack Martin is YALSA's 2012-2013 President. His presidential theme is YALSA: Connect, Create, Collaborate .

"Among YALSA's most valuable assets is its membership, and I'm hoping to tap each and every member over the course of my presidential year to find out how we can help them connect with each other, create amazing and innovative new projects around teen services in libraries and help them and YALSA collaborate with local and national partners. We'll be building a new online tool called 365 Days of YA which will offer librarians and library workers across the country 365 cool and collaborative ideas on how they can best serve teens. We'll be going local by fostering partnerships with State Library Associations, and probably a whole lot more."

Jack has worked in public libraries since the age of thirteen when his mom volunteered him to work at his local library in Cornelia, Georgia. From there, he moved on to the Athens Regional Library in Athens, Georgie, and from there to Providence, Rhode Island, where he worked as a Children's Specialist. He worked at the New York Public Library from 2001 - 2012, where he began in the neighborhood branches but eventually led the programming for Teen Central, NYPL's premier teen space. Most recently Martin was the Director of Public Programs / Lifelong Learning at The New York Public Library, where he headed up programming for all ages (especially teens!) in 89 libraries across The Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island. He lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with his husband and two bad cats.

Jack first got his feet wet in YALSA as a committee member of the Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers team. After that he served on the 2010 Michael L. Printz Award committee. Following that he served on YALSA's Board of Directors from 2010-11 before becoming President-Elect in 2011-12.

You can follow him on Twitter: @yalsapresident or @jacksondevious.

Access the recording of Jack's first member e-chat, held on August 2, 2012, via Adobe Connect.  Jack's last of 4 e-chats is May 9, 2013 from 1-2pm, eastern.  Join Jack to explore with members what is it that they want YALSA to accomplish in the area of advocacy.

Jack Martin's photo is by Kurt Wilberding and originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Runway blog.

See a gallery of YALSA's past presidents. (Flash 8 required).