Dear YART Members and other fans of YA Librarianship,

Some of you may be surprised to know that YART has had a blog for quite a few months. At its inception it was a private blog, one for YART members and only accessible through the TLA Members Only login.

How useful was that? Not very.

At the YART Executive Board meeting in February, we decided to make our blog public and share it with anyone who wants to read it. While posting new entries is for the YART Executive Board only, anyone may make a comment on a post.

Thanks to Randy May at TLA HQ and Susi Parks Grissom, YART Chair, for getting this ready to go.

We have plans to post updates here on the exciting work of our committees as well as other YA news in the world. Annual Conference is fast approaching and we will post information about our various programs and authors. We also have the idea of live blogging the conference, so we'll see how that goes.

Subscribing to a feed service is a great idea if you want to know when a new post is made to this blog without having to check back here every day. There are several services available for this such as Google & Bloglines. If you have a favorite service, please post the link in the comments.

Here's to an exciting new adventure for YART!

Sincerely,
Joanna Nigrelli
YART Chair-Elect
Teen Librarian - Austin Public Library

Congratulations to Austin Public Library Children's Programming Specialist Devo Carpenter on her brand new 2008 Library Journal Mover and Shaker Status!

Devo will be co-presenting a program at TLA on Wednesday at 10:15 a.m. Be sure to check it out.

Working with Teens on the Edge
Austin Public Library's award-winning Second Chance books project reaches out to troubled teens in partnership with a juvenile detention center. Librarians, a reading specialist and a noted YA author explore how to create a similar program in your community.
Devona Carpenter, Austin Public Library
Blair Parsons, Austin Public Library
Terry Trueman, YA author / HarperCollins Children's Books
Christa Woodard, reading specialist, Travis County Juvenile Detention Center