YALSA Academy launches on YouTube

CHICAGO — YALSA Academy, a new online educational video initiative from the Young Adult Library Services Association, launches on Jan. 17 at www.youtube.com/yalsa1957. The channel offers free training videos on popular, practical professional development topics for school and YA services librarians, as well as other staff who work with teens in libraries. The videos include such topics as:

• providing customer service to teens
• connecting teens and e-readers
• conducting a mock Printz program
• and ideas for building a YA collection

“I'm excited that YALSA is creating this opportunity for teen services staff to both receive and provide training,” said Sarah Flowers, YALSA president. “As library budgets get cut, training is often one of the first things to go, and the YALSA Academy's short, focused videos will fill a crucial need, allowing new library workers to find important guidance and more experienced ones to share their expertise."

YALSA members and nonmembers are eligible to submit a video. The intended audiences of the videos are young adult librarians, school librarians, library support staff, teachers, administrators, technology staff working with teens and educators and any literacy-focused professional who works directly with teens and tweens.

Videos will be posted to YALSA Academy YouTube channel as well as YALSA’s other social media outlets, including its blogs, wikis, Facebook pages and Twitter account.

Those interested in posting a short instructional video should consult the guidelines, read the frequently asked questions and watch the introductory video on the YALSA Academy website, www.ala.org/yalsa/academy.

For more information about YALSA Academy, 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 audiobooks 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.