Professional development training is a frequent part of ACL’s monthly meetings. Experts from ACL and other organizations offer presentations on current and essential topics regarding library service to youth. Below are the professional development topics that are upcoming at ACL meetings; for past meetings’ information view our Professional Development Archive. Find additional professional development resources on our blog.
Upcoming Professional Development Topics
March 2018
Eva Volin, Supervising Librarian, Children’s Services for Alameda Free Library, will offer a presentation about manga. What is it? Who does it appeal to? How do we manage it in our collections?
April 2018 – ACL Institute
May 2018
Are you looking for new picture books to offer at your storytimes? Storytimes are one of the most popular and consistent library programs held for families, yet we often feature the “tried and true” books we have used for years. Penny Peck’s presentation will focus on new picture books that will engage the storytime audience, including books that invite audience participation, books the promote the five parent practices (talking, singing, writing, playing, and reading), books based on songs and nursery rhymes, and books that promote preliteracy skills and kindergarten readiness.
June 2018
Amy Martin, Children’s Collection Manager at Oakland Public Library, will present about law enforcement representation in children’s books and more information about the toolkit she created on this topic.
July 2018 – ALA Annual Roundtable
August 2018
Jeanie Austin, a teen services librarian with San Francisco Public Library, will present their dissertation research which traces how past policies and processes that established white, middle-class, and hetero-normative conduct and knowledge as central to library services have worked—and continue to work—against youth of color and/or LGBTQ and gender non-conforming youth. It pulls from queer, feminist, poststructural, and critical theory to provide a model for how libraries can center youth made vulnerable to the state. This involves an interrogation of what representation does or can do in the current moment alongside the recognition that cultures within librarianship inhibit library access for youth of color and/or LGBTQ and gender non-conforming youth.