ALIA Children's and Youth Services (NSW)

January-June 2002

Six-monthly report to the ALIA Board of Directors

Objectives

• ALIA Children's and Youth Services (NSW) promotes library services to children and youth, highlighting children's literature and fostering professional development of members.
• The committee co-ordinates the national ALIA awards for children's librarians, promotes children's librarianship within the profession, and encourages networking and communication between members.
• The committee also co-ordinates the national aliaCYSS e-list.

CYS (NSW) committee
2002 commenced with a number of changes to the CYS (NSW) committee, resignations were accepted from Sandra Sng, Bev Sinclair and more recently Paula Pfoeffer. Two new members joined the committee: Wilma Bancroft and Carolyn Bourke.

The current committee is:

• Mylee Joseph (convenor)
• Cameron Morley (minutes secretary)
• Judy Drayton (treasurer)
• Susan Campbell (national awards)
• Carolyn Bourke
• Wilma Bancroft
• Julie Barkman

Events

One-Day Seminar 2002 The changes to the committee in the early part of the year put a strain on the people power required to hold all of the programs that were planned for 2002. It was not feasible to hold the annual one-day seminar with a very short lead-up time and too few committee members to arrange it. The seminar will be held over until 1 April 2003.

Pre-Book Week Extravaganza Book Week - Book Feast The annual Pre-Book Week Extravaganza event was held on Friday 21 June 2002 at Burwood Council Chambers. 48 people attended. The CYS group successfully applied to all of the shortlisted publishers for permission to use the books for:

• Displays in the libraries
• Readers Theatre - dramatising scenes from a book
• Storytelling
• Cross words and find-a-words
• Competitions (colouring in etc.)

...during the Extravaganza and Children's Book Week 2002.

National Awards

Bess Thomas
The Bess Thomas Award was presented at the ALIA AGM during the conference on Monday 20 May 2002 . Being included in the AGM gave the CYS national awards a much higher profile than at previous ALIA conferences. The award was presented to the Inglewood Public Library, one of the City of Stirling libraries in Perth, Western Australia.

The $250 offered for the award is very little for a library program and options for sponsorship will be considered for future years. The very small number of entries received in 2002 may be in part attributed to the amount of effort required to put together an application and the small amount of money awarded.

Marjorie Cotton
No nominations were received for the Marjorie Cotton Award in 2002. This award is a certificate of recognition with no monetary award.

Publicity and Promotional Activities

Website A number of additions were made to the CYS website, including the notes from the Pre-Book Week Extravaganza - one of our most popular pages and anxiously awaited by children's librarians and teachers across the country each year.

A biography of Bess Thomas and a list of past winners was also added to the awards section of the website.

E-list
The e-list continues to be moderately active. It has proved a very useful method of disseminating information on a range of children's and youth services issues.

Planned events

Management Seminar 2002
Date: 1 November 2002
Venue: Burwood Council Chambers
Theme: Break a leg! Working with authors, illustrators and entertainers in the library.

National Simultaneous Storytime
The CYS group has taken a co-ordinating role for the National Simultaneous Storytime in co-operation with Sandra Reid at ALIA head office. Mrs Wilkinson's Chooks is the featured story and there is great interest with more than 600 registered events to date.

One-Day Seminar 2003/Nancy Booker Honour Lecture
Switching them on to reading: books and young children

Mem Fox is to be the keynote speaker at the one-day seminar on 1 April 2003 at the State Library of NSW. The Nancy Booker Honour lecture will be incorporated into the one-day seminar and Mem Fox's presentation would fill that role nicely.