For immediate release | January 9, 2012

Discuss serving religious teens in YALSA’s January YA Forum

CHICAGO — The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) will feature serving religious teens in its monthly YA Forum discussion, held for members this month at http://connect.ala.org/yalsa. Throughout the week, YALSA members are encouraged to check in to the discussion forum and ask questions and contribute to the ongoing discussion. The forum opened at 10 a.m. EST on Jan. 9 and will close at 3 p.m. EST on Jan. 13.

Matching religious teens with the right material can be a challenge. Join Sarah Holtkamp and Jennifer Lowe for a weeklong discussion on serving religious teens. Sarah and Jennifer will discuss how to connect religious teens with materials, what is implied by “clean reads” and how to help teens when there is a scarcity of material addressing their religious beliefs. Jennifer and Sarah will also discuss the issue of labeling religious fiction and how to ensure that both the teen’s interest and the stated preferences of the parent/guardian are being met.

YA Forum is a monthly discussion just for YALSA members. Each discussion will focus on a specific topic and will be moderated by an expert in the field. YA Forum is hosted in YALSA’s space in ALA Connect at http://connect.ala.org/yalsa. To access the discussion, you must be a YALSA member.

To access the YA Forum discussion, you must be a YALSA member. Starting at 10 a.m. EST, members can join the conversation by logging into ALA Connect and choosing “YALSA” under “My ALA Groups,” then selecting “Discussions” on the upper right.

For more information about YA Forum, please contact Eve Gaus, YALSA’s program officer for continuing education, at egaus@ala.org or 1 (800) 545-2433, ext. 2128.

For more than 50 years, YALSA has been the world leader in selecting books, videos and audio books for teens. For more information about YALSA or for lists of recommended reading, viewing and listening, go to www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists, or contact the YALSA office by phone, (800) 545-2433, ext. 4390, or e-mail, yalsa@ala.org.

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