From: Aimee Strittmatter, Executive Director

ALSC Board AC 2015 DOC. #9

June 18, 2015

To: ALSC Board of Directors

Re: Management Report, February 2015 – June 2015 ______Hello Board! This report offers a summary of activities happening in the office since the 2015 Midwinter Meeting. I will be glad to answer any questions about the items below.

OFFICE  As you are aware, Joanna Ison’s last day with ALSC was Thursday, May 21st. We will contract with Joanna as a consultant on some projects to minimize disruption and ensure continuity with our work.  Angela Hubbard joined the ALSC staff on Monday, May 18th as our new Program Officer for Projects and Partnerships. She had a four day overlap with Joanna to assist with the transition of our projects. Angela has a MA in teaching and a BS in business administration. She worked eight years with the Chicago Public Schools as a teacher for preschool, kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 7th grades. She went on to serve as an Illinois Early Childhood Fellow for two years with the Ounce of Prevention Fund, and was promoted to the Educare Chicago Alumni Network Manager at the Fund. As a fellow she was the lead editor for their online policy and advocacy newsletter, co-developed a toolkit for state leaders to identify opportunities and strategies for combining funding streams to support early learning, and kept up with policy issues related to preschool and k-12 education. As the Alumni Network Manager, she planned and implanted programs to engage Educare alumni in activities to benefit alumni families and current program participants, all the while furthering the Ounce of Prevention’s strategic goals.  I traveled to Orlando, Florida from March 7-10, 2015 to attend the American Society of Association Executive’s Great Ideas conference. I attended a variety of workshops around engaging membership, disruptive trends, designing surveys, engaging strangers to inspire innovation, diversity and inclusion, content activation, and evidence- based decision making.  I met with the ALA Budget Analysis and Review Committee (BARC) on Thursday, April 30th. I provided an overview of our preliminary FY 2016 budget and three priorities identified for the next fiscal year: Early Literacy Public Awareness (30 million word gap/Babies Need Words Every Day Poster Project) with $25,000 committed to support it; the media mentorship white paper and the training that will need to be developed around that since it will be a sea change for library service; and our diversity, inclusion and equity work. BARC did not express any concerns.  I traveled to Washington, DC from May 3-5 and May 7-9 for both National Library Legislative Day and the Arbuthnot Lecture featuring Brian Selznick at the DC Public Library. ALSC Leadership attended National Library Legislative Day in Washington, DC. ALSC’s delegation consisted of Ellen Riordan, ALSC President; Andrew Medlar, ALSC Vice President/President-Elect; Helen Bloch, ALSC Advocacy and Legislation Committee Member (funded through the Children and Library Services Endowment and selected by the Executive Committee); and Joanna Ison, ALSC Program Officer for Projects and Partnerships. ALSC met with the following groups: New America, IMLS, ALSC Board AC 2015 DOC. #9

the Health and Human Services’ Office of Head Start and Office of Child Care, Reach Out and Read, National Summer Learning Association for an information exchange. Additionally, there were meetings with the Senate’s HELP Committee, and the House of Representative’s Education and the Workforce Committee to advocate for libraries as essential partners in early learning.

ALA  At the end of May, ALA transitioned to a new fulfillment center for its store products and publications. This will impact how our bulk award seals are shipped to publishers. Courtney Jones and I worked with the Publishing Department to create a transition plan for our products. We presented our recommendations to other ALA seal stakeholders to assist them with their products.  The 2015 ALA Virtual Membership Meeting (VMM15) took place on June 4 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. (CDT). A VMM15 ALA web page and the ALA Members VMM group on ALA Connect each contain all relevant documents, the meeting agenda, the Guidelines for Preparation of Resolutions for ALA Virtual Membership Meetings, and opportunities to follow members’ pre-meeting chats.  ALA is currently in the process of creating a responsive design website (to work with mobile and tablet devices) and will be test driving a prototype during Annual Conference to seek member feedback. At some point in the future, divisions will need to make adjustments to their websites in order to adopt the new design. This may result in financial implications if we need to have new graphics designed to fit the new parameters (square banner slides instead of rectangle, etc.).  ALA has also been working on the initial phases of a new e-commerce system for our dues and donations. The goal is to help facilitate the user experience, guiding them through in an efficient and relevant manner. ALA is exploring a recommendation engine to help people find divisions and round tables that meet their interests. ALA Information and Technology & Telecommunication Services (ITTS) would like to implement the system in the fall.  An ALA Task Force consisting of staff (Dan Bostrom is representing ALSC), members of the ALA website advisory committee, and one ALA Board member have been exploring possible vendors to replace the ALA Connect platform. Just today, we received the following announcement from Jenny Levine, ALA’s Strategy Guide. I’m happy to report that the New ALA Connect Task Force (comprised of both staff and members of the ALA Website Advisory Committee) has selected Higher Logic as the vendor for the next generation of Connect. ITTS will work with the company on a contract in the hope that the discovery phase can begin in mid-July for a Fall implementation. The Task Force will continue its work over the summer to help determine configuration settings, templates, and migration issues. ITTS will be in contact with every unit in order to work with you on which of your groups should be migrated into the new system and how much content you want to keep. The contract will start with the basic suite of services and synchronization of activities back to iMIS. The basic suite will provide all of the group tools we have in the current Connect with the following exceptions: 1. Text-based chat will not be available in the new system, so those groups that rely on that feature will need to find an alternative before the launch date. 2. MentorConnect – Although Higher Logic does have a mentor match module, there is an additional monthly fee for it so the Task Force has recommended that ITTS ALSC Board AC 2015 DOC. #9

request it be added to the budget for FY17, which means this service will not be available until September 2016. 3. Opportunities Exchange – As with the mentor match module, there is an additional fee for the Volunteer Central module in Higher Logic. The Task Force has recommended that ITTS request it be added to the budget for FY17, so this service will also be unavailable until September 2016.

Otherwise, we’ll have all of the other tools available that your groups are already using: 1. Discussion threads 2. Collaborative online documents 3. A file repository 4. A group calendar 5. Search 6. Tags to organize your content 7. Polling feature

In addition, we’ll gain some new features: 1. Robust member profiles 2. Members will be able to earn points for their contributions and will be able to receive badges for expertise and service 3. A matching service to help members find others with similar interests 4. A matching service to help members easily find groups to join 5. The ability to cross-post a file to more than one group 6. Informz integration 7. More advanced statistical reports

PARTNERSHIPS/OPPORTUNITIES  Joanna met with ALA Development in late April and submitted a brief proposal to the Dollar General Literacy Foundation to support the sixth year of Día funding. Knowing that Joanna was leaving ALSC, the proposal was designed to be flexible and focused on continuing the STEAM work we started this year as well as an opportunity to support activities for the 20th anniversary of Día. We will begin planning and shaping the goals of the potential grant after Annual Conference.  The corporate grant to support creativity programming has been secured (still under non- disclosure), and the timeline has been delayed. The project will begin this fall with one round of grant distribution to support creativity programs.  While we were in DC for National Library Legislative Day, we cultivated some of our relationships with IMLS, NSLA, ROR, HHS Head Start, HHS Office of Child Care. We have passed information for ROR, and have begun some phone conversations. Additionally, we met with Lisa Guernsey at New America who has agreed to keynote our leadership and ALSC meeting at Annual Conference.  On May 15, the Washington Office has requested ALSC provide feedback on the House Education and Workforce Committee’s white paper “Strengthening the Federal Investment in Early Childhood Education.” The office worked with Ellen to submit comments by the June 1st deadline.  Univision has invested in a new education campaign. In May, they released a soft launch of an online tool for Spanish speaking parents called Clave al Exito. In June, they reached ALSC Board AC 2015 DOC. #9

out to ALA to learn more about the work we do. Angela, Kim Olsen-Clark, Director of Development, and I held a very brief phone call to learn about their new tool and have arranged a follow-up call to explore the possibility of repurposing existing ALSC content for use on the site.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS  Children and Libraries (CAL) received a 2015 Apex Award of Excellence in the category for Magazines, Journals, and Tabloids - Writing for the Summer 2014 issue. The Apex Awards are sponsored by Communications Concepts, Inc., an organization that supports publishing, public relations and marketing professionals in the improvement of publications and communications programs.  On Monday, February 2nd during their Session II meeting, the ALSC Board of Directors reflected on the Day of Diversity: Dialogue and Action in Children’s Literature and Library Programming event and put together a list of commitments by the Association for the next three months and the next six months (by the end of July). Every commitment but one has been met. The remaining commitment is the STEAM toolkit which has been drafted and is currently under review and will then go to production services for design.  In February, ALSC opened the spring 2015 applications for the ALSC mentoring program. The program, which is open to members and non-members, is intended to help build a new collection of leaders in the field of library service to children. Applications are now open for both mentors and mentees. Applications were due by Saturday, February 28, 2015.  E-books may now be submitted for the Mildred Batchelder Award as part of a pilot project. Beginning with the 2016 award committee, books published in both the country of origin and the United States exclusively as e-books, or books published in both countries as an e-book and print book may be submitted by a publisher for Batchelder award consideration. Submitted e-books must meet all Batchelder terms and criteria. For more information, visit the Batchelder submissions page.  On March 17, 2015 at 11AM CST, ALSC hosted a free webinar titled Building STEAM with Día: The Whys and Hows to Getting Started. Participants gained knowledge on how STEAM programming can most effectively impact all members of the community, in particular underrepresented minorities. This webinar is part of the 2015 Día activities and is made possible through the Everyone Reads @ your library grant funded by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation.  On Monday, March 16, 2015, ALSC presented a new student session entitled STEM @ Your Library. This student session identified ways to incorporate STEM into school and public library programming and the creation of circulating kits to support STEM learning at home. ALSC student sessions are open to anyone, including members and non- members.  The Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC) has awarded the 2015 Bookapalooza Program to three libraries: Maricopa Public Library, Maricopa, Arizona; Pinetop-Lakeside Public Library, Lakeside, Arizona; and Monterey County Free Libraries, Marina, California. The award includes a variety of materials from books to DVDs and audiobooks. These materials have been received at the ALSC office from publishers for selection committees to evaluate for awards and notables consideration. To ALSC Board AC 2015 DOC. #9

make room for the next year’s publications, Bookapalooza was created to infuse three collections with new materials for children age birth through age 14.  ALSC's Quicklists Consulting Committee updated ALSC’s Summer Reading Lists with new titles intended to keep children engaged in reading throughout the summer. Three customizable book lists are available for download for children from Kindergarten-2nd grade, 3rd- 5th grade and 6th-8th grade.  On March 11, 2015, the ALSC Board of Directors voted to adopt a white paper titled Media Mentorship in Libraries Serving Youth. This paper was written for ALSC by Cen Campbell, Claudia Haines, Amy Koester, and Dorothy Stoltz. The paper explores the role of children’s librarians as mentors of new media and responsibility to support families in their intentional, appropriate, and positive use of media.  ALSC’s Advocacy and Legislative Committee developed resources for ALSC members to participate in National Library Legislative Day from their home. The committee developed talking points, a letter to Congress template, social media language and a kick- off blog post. ALSC members were encouraged to contact their Congressmen and Senators throughout the Week of May 4th and ask them to support libraries.  ALSC has produced 8 posters through the Babies Need Words Every Day project. Each cheerfully designed posters is filled with age appropriate finger plays and rhymes to help give caregivers tools and information on the importance of talking with their baby to develop their baby’s brain and skills and lay the groundwork for future success. This spring and summer ALSC will also be releasing an accompanying booklist, Spanish language posters and a marketing kit for libraries to use in order to promote the posters in their community. The project will be launched at the Babies Need Words Every Day: Bridging the Word Gap as a Community ALA Annual Conference program in San Francisco.  In April, ALSC hosted a new student session entitled How to Put the Library in STEM. This session was presented by Emily Bredberg, a school librarian at Lakeside Elementary in Coppell, TX and Alicia Montgomery, a school librarian at Town Center Elementary in Coppell, TX. Student sessions are administered by the ALSC Membership Committee and free to the public.  ALSC celebrated the 19th anniversary of Día, El día de los niños/El día de los libros, on April 30, 2015. Día helps children and families from all cultural and linguistic backgrounds become critical thinkers, lifelong learners, and active global citizens. Libraries who are celebrating Día have been asked to register their program in the searchable National Día Program Regsitry.  In April, as part of on-going efforts to better serve the members, the ALSC Membership Committee conducted its biennial Membership Needs Assessment Survey., The committee encouraged all ALSC members to take a ten-minute survey. The results will help the ALSC Membership Committee make recommendations for new membership actions. To encourage participation, the committee offered participants the opportunity to be entered in a giveaway which include tickets to the 2015 Newbery-Caldecott-Wilder Banquet, a $50 ALA Store gift certificate, ALSC/Día prize packs and award books.  As part of the ALSC advocacy button campaign, ALSC members had the opportunity to enter into a drawing for one of four tickets to the 2015 Newbery-Caldecott-Wilder Banquet in San Francisco. To enter, ALSC members were asked to submit content to the Everyday Advocacy Matters e-newsletter by Friday, May 1, 2015. All who submitted a ALSC Board AC 2015 DOC. #9

question, elevator speech or news item, received an advocacy button and tip sheet in the mail.  In April, the ALSC Valuation & Assessment Task Force and the 2015 ALSC Emerging Leaders Team conducted a survey to help examine the ways in which youth librarians are using measuring outcomes and outputs in their libraries. Responses will inform the creation of new tools and resources for the Everyday Advocacy website.  To thank Texas teachers and librarians for their participation in Día: Diversity in Action and to offer new resources to youth service librarians, ALSC hosted a booth at the 2015 Texas Library Association conference. Nine member volunteers helped staff the booth and connect with prospective members. ALSC invited conference attendees to participate in a giveaway for ALSC prizes including a selfie stick. More than 65 attendees participated in the giveaway.  Summer courses will begin July 13. ALSC will be offering two courses this summer: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Programs Made Easy and Storytelling with Puppets. Both courses are being offered for CEU credit. Course descriptions and registration is available on the ALSC website. ALSC’s Spring online courses began April 6. Students had the choice of three different course offerings: Children with Disabilities in the Library, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Programs Made Easy, or Storytelling with Puppets. All courses are eligible for CEU credits.  The ALSC Education Committee is always considering new courses and webinars to add to ALSC’s growing online education offerings. Members interested in teaching need to fill out an online application and provide a copy of their resume, teaching references, and a course syllabus (not needed for webinars). The Education Committee will be selecting proposals on a rolling basis to allow for courses to be added multiple times throughout the year. ALSC is currently offering a two-part webinar titled Be A Winner: Inspired Youth Grant Writing. Part I took place on April 2, and Part II will take place on April 21. ALSC is also offering a webinar titled Celebrating with Poetry Snapshots that will take place on May 7.  ALSC is now accepting proposals for the 2016 ALSC National Institute. To submit a program proposal, members are encouraged to fill out the online program proposal form on the ALSC website. All proposals must be submitted by Sunday, July 12, 2015. For both events, the ALSC Program Planning Committee is looking for a wide range of themes and topics such as advocacy, technology, multiculturalism, administration and management, early literacy, research, partnerships, best practices, programming, and outreach.  The 2016 Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Committee will announce the host site of the 47th May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture featuring Pat Mora during the ALSC Membership Meeting. Mora is a pioneering author and literacy advocate.

 2015 ALSC Professional Awards Announced: Maureen Hayes Award Through a partnership with Rockford Area Arts Council, the Rockford Public Library will use the Maureen Hayes Grant to help host acclaimed author-illustrator Marc Brown. Baker & Taylor Summer Reading Grant Florida Public Library will use the grant to implement summer programming for children of all ages focused on superheroes, from local heroes and sports heroes to mythological ALSC Board AC 2015 DOC. #9

heroes and the ever-popular comic book superheroes. Highlights will include bilingual storytimes for children of migrant families, a special storytime for children needing a calmer environment, Makerspace programs and an ice cream social. Distinguished Service Award Kathleen T. Horning has been named ALSC’s 2015 DSA recipient. Horning has served ALSC on an organizational level as President, member of the Board of Directors, chair of the Caldecott 75th Anniversary Task Force and co-chair of the pre-conference celebrating 75 years of Caldecott books. As President, she forged strong ties with REFORMA resulting in an annual Pura Belpré Award and strengthening the national Día celebrations. She has also served on many media evaluation and award committees including chairing the 1995 Newbery Committee, and the 1997 Batchelder Committee. She is currently serving on the 2015 Laura Ingalls Wilder Committee. Candlewick Light the Way Grant The Putnam County Library in Cookeville, Tennessee, plans to use the grant to provide weekly door-to-door outreach to two underserved populations in the community. Recognizing the success of an existing program in the school district, the library will partner with teacher volunteers to provide a variety of reading materials for the traveling collection as well as food for the children. The program aims to foster community and trust between families, schools and the library, while supporting the literacy needs of the community. MARK YOUR CALENDAR  The Newbery Caldecott Wilder Banquet will take place Sunday evening, 6:00-11:00 p.m. at the Hilton Union Square. Tickets are $94. The ALSC Board of Directors have been invited to attend the pre-banquet Green Room Reception from 5:45-6:30 p.m. even if not planning to attend the meal function. The office has sent details along with a call for Board volunteers to represent ALSC in the post-banquet receiving line.

 Charlemae Rollins President's Program: More to the Core: From the Craft of Nonfiction to the Expertise in the Stacks, Moscone Conv Ctr, 2001 (W) At the 2015 ALSC President's Program on Monday, June 29, 2015, awarding winning author and illustrator Melissa Sweet and literacy advocate Judy Cheatham, VP of Literacy Services at Reading is Fundamental, share the stage to present an informing and inspiring look at the creation of excellent nonfiction and the matchmaking of great books and kids who need them. Libraries’ role in innovative implementation of programs and services to support the Common Core Standards is a central skill and an important contribution to the communities we serve. Even if CCS isn’t a part of your educational landscape, great nonfiction books – how they are created and ways to connect them to children and families is central to our craft and critical to our ability to collaborate with our communities. Let’s be inspired together!  The 2015 Pura Belpré Award Celebración, will take place on Sunday, June 28, 2015 from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. in the InterContinental San Franciso, InterContinental Ballroom. ALSC and REFORMA are proud to request the honor of your presence at the Pura Belpré Award Celebración. Please join our winning authors and illustrators in a special event where we will honor and celebrate the 2015 medal and honor winners.

 The ALSC Awards Presentation will take place on Monday from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m in MCC-3006 (W). The Batchelder, Carnegie, Geisel, and Sibert Awards will be presented ALSC Board AC 2015 DOC. #9

and the ALSC membership meeting will follow from 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. in MCC-3000 (W).

 The Odyssey Awards for Excellence in Audiobook Production Awards Program, administered jointly by ALSC and YALSA and sponsored by Booklist, will be presented on Monday from 3:00-5:30 p.m. in MCC-2014 (W). The presentation will feature clips from the 2015 winners and a reception sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association with light refreshments will follow the award presentations and program.

 Local Arrangements San Francisco Travel Information ALSC’s Local Arrangements committee has put together valuable information for attendees of the 2015 Annual Conference, including tips for local travel and transportation, restaurant recommendations, and must-see sights. More information is available on ALSC’s website.