Youth Services Section/MLA

Tuesday, January 12, 2021 @ 2PM

Present: Lizzy McGovern, Carol Gafford, Katrina Ireland, Audrey Snowden 

...and a number of other YS participants, for a total of 23!

      Let’s get it 2021!

1. Welcome! How is everyone doing? A quick survey shows participants’ libraries are doing lots of curbside and lots of take and makes, but there is a mix. 

2. Newsletter

1. Subcommittee: Hannah Gonzales from Westboro has reached out to Lizzy to volunteer; Caitlyn Clark has volunteered, and newsletter/committee maven Carol Gafford is onboard. Carol has talked to the MLA president and now has the information for Wild Apricot, so we could do our newsletter using that. Marissa Antosh noted YSS also has a Mailchimp account.  

2. Content: this will be shared from all of us. We need a way to get it in...whether it’s a call for submissions or a form.

3. Timeline: Lizzy will reach out. She also notes that YSS has Facebook and Twitter accounts, and she’d like to see an Instagram. A quick survey of those present shows most people are on Facebook. Marissa pointed out Instagram is more visual, so it’s better for advertising than in-depth messaging. Several people noted platform is strongly divided by user age.

3. Gaming series for librarians: a librarian-friendly let’s figure it out together. 

1. Among Us: Lizzy is going to look into picking a date for an informal Among Us meetup (led by Marissa!)

2. Pokémon  

3. Minecraft

4. Fortnite 

5. ???

Carol notes ALA has a gaming group on Discord that anyone can chat with. The name of the server is ALA Games and Gaming Roundtable (head: Rebecca Strang). Dina Delic offered a tour of her Animal Crossing town. Susan Elbag noted OneUp Games is a pretty user-friendly service, and Lizzy likes them too.

4. Summer Reading…..😱 [skipped for time]

5. Updated logo/social media [skipped for time] 

6. Conference Update: There’s no conference update because no meeting last month. There is a meeting this Friday. What we do know is there will be a virtual conference in May; Katrina thinks they have a good lineup and of course it will be much cheaper to attend. More info to come next month.

7. MLS Mock Newbery: Voting and Celebration January 19: Lizzy (along with Kristy Pasquariello of Westwood) invites everyone to the voting and celebration. Reach out to Lizzy or April Mazza with any questions.

8. Open discussion/general merriment: Lizzy wants to know what you want to get out of this group, especially if you’re not getting it elsewhere. You can email her offline too. Some answers include professional development, networking, connection with librarians from similarly sized libraries, and programming ideas. Susan Elbag wanted to know if there’s a teen services group, rather than youth services. While there currently is not, the process for getting a subcommittee isn’t terribly onerous (Marissa noted you have to get people interested and draw up a plan and form an executive board), and it seems like there could be movement toward forming a teen services subcommittee.

Lizzy brought up the idea of appointing a member-at-large from the central region. Getting one would require a YSS bylaw change, but bylaw changes don’t need to be voted on by the executive board, just approved by the section. Carol noted if we’re creating a Central position, we should also do one for the Cape Cod area. Obviously this is where post-COVID in-person retreats should be located.