Contact: Nichole Gilbert
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ALA News Release
For Immediate Release
March 2001
Phyllis Saunders wins the 2001 YALSA Sagebrush Award
The 2001 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)/Sagebrush Award for a Young Adult Reading or Literature Program was awarded to Phyllis Saunders, youth services supervisor for the Chandler (Ariz.) Public Library.
Saunders won for her Teen Matrix program, a project that combines an online reading program with activities that take place in the library and are planned and implemented by her teen advisory group. There is a link to the Chandler Public Library Web page allows teens to read what they want and share it with other teens even when they cannot get to the library. Over 500 teens registered for Teen Matrix.
"The 20 Teen Advisory Group members will be the first people I tell," Saunders said. "There was no way we could have done it with without them, and they are smug enough to know it. My library system also makes it clear that anything is possible, and it was."
The Sagebrush Award, formerly the Econo-Clad Award for a Young Adult Reading or Literature Program, provides $1,000 to support the recipient's attendance at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, to be held in San Francisco, June 14-20, 2001.
The Sagebrush Corporation has been providing high-quality pre-bound Econo-Clad books to the education market for 35 years and is an expert in the reading program market. Each year the corporation offers a maximum of two awards that allow YALSA award winners to promote their local projects at the national conference. Each winning project must promote reading or literature to teens in a significant, replicable program.
The Sagebrush Award winner is selected by the YALSA Outreach to Young Adults with Special Needs Committee. The 2001 committee members are: Naomi Angier, Multnomah County Library, Wash; Maureen Connelly, New York Public Library, Karen Heau, Queens Borough Public Library, Glen Oaks Branch (N.Y.); Doris Jackson, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library, Ga.; Jeffrey Katz, Seattle Public Library; Kimberly Paone, Free Public Library of Elizabeth, N.J.; Kevin Scanlon, Flint Public Library, Mich.; Annette Thibodeaux, Archbishop Chapelle High School, Metairie, La.; Leslie Ann Westbrook, Solano County Library, Springstowne Library, Calif.; and Cather Clancy, committee chair, Boston Public Library.
Grant applications are available from the YALSA office or online at the YALSA Web site.
YALSA is a division of the ALA.