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Re: The Role of YALSA
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From: Lynn Rutan <lmrutan_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 10:45:57 -0400
Marc raises several interesting points and one of them is prodding me out of my usual lurkdom. I don’t want to make this a bash YALSA thread but I think it is important to emphasize the impact that selection and award committees have. I do a fair amount of speaking to groups about youth literature and collection development. Sadly many librarians, especially school librarians, have few review sources, fewer budgetary resources and even less time to spend on purchase evaluation and collection development. Selection lists such as Notable Books and what used to be BBYA are an enormously important starting point for making purchase decisions. When YALSA decided to water down BBYA, they took a lot of usefulness out of the list - especially as it did not become much shorter without nonfiction and graphic novels.
As hard as it is for those of us who are fortunate enough to remain connected to review journals and publisher information, many working librarians are working from a very handicapped position.The old BBYA list put up a carefully vetted recommended list of what was really best for teen libraries and that was often the one place that librarians and teachers had as a starting place to find out what was being published and what was good. I’m one of those that fought hard against the change to BBYA and as I speak to groups, I hear often that the new list - BFYA - is not valued. In a time when schools are scrambling to understand and meet CCSS, librarians really need to know as much as possible about what is being published in nonfiction and what is really excellent quality. I think the loss of nonfiction to BBYA is a huge disservice to librarians and teachers and ultimately to kids.
I am very happy to have the YALSA Nonfiction Award but the need for a nonfiction selection list remains extremely important. I’m watching school administrators make horrifying decisions about what materials will be used in classrooms such as some pretty awful packaged programs and I want to give librarians and teachers access to as much information about quality alternatives as possible.
Lynn Rutan Bookends - Booklist Online Youth Blog lmrutan_at_gmail.com
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Received on Tue 10 Jun 2014 09:46:23 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 10:45:57 -0400
Marc raises several interesting points and one of them is prodding me out of my usual lurkdom. I don’t want to make this a bash YALSA thread but I think it is important to emphasize the impact that selection and award committees have. I do a fair amount of speaking to groups about youth literature and collection development. Sadly many librarians, especially school librarians, have few review sources, fewer budgetary resources and even less time to spend on purchase evaluation and collection development. Selection lists such as Notable Books and what used to be BBYA are an enormously important starting point for making purchase decisions. When YALSA decided to water down BBYA, they took a lot of usefulness out of the list - especially as it did not become much shorter without nonfiction and graphic novels.
As hard as it is for those of us who are fortunate enough to remain connected to review journals and publisher information, many working librarians are working from a very handicapped position.The old BBYA list put up a carefully vetted recommended list of what was really best for teen libraries and that was often the one place that librarians and teachers had as a starting place to find out what was being published and what was good. I’m one of those that fought hard against the change to BBYA and as I speak to groups, I hear often that the new list - BFYA - is not valued. In a time when schools are scrambling to understand and meet CCSS, librarians really need to know as much as possible about what is being published in nonfiction and what is really excellent quality. I think the loss of nonfiction to BBYA is a huge disservice to librarians and teachers and ultimately to kids.
I am very happy to have the YALSA Nonfiction Award but the need for a nonfiction selection list remains extremely important. I’m watching school administrators make horrifying decisions about what materials will be used in classrooms such as some pretty awful packaged programs and I want to give librarians and teachers access to as much information about quality alternatives as possible.
Lynn Rutan Bookends - Booklist Online Youth Blog lmrutan_at_gmail.com
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Received on Tue 10 Jun 2014 09:46:23 AM CDT
