News Briefs
Staff -- School Library Journal, 2/1/2001
2001 Zolotow Award Winner Congratulations Judy King, former director of library technology and communications for the Madison (WI) Metropolitan School District, has been named director of program development at the American Association of School Librarians and the Young Adult Library Services Association. Andrea Davis Pinkney (right), the executive editor of Hyperion's Jump at the Sun, an imprint that celebrates the black cultural experience, has been named Hyperion's editorial director. Pinkney has also held editorial positions at Simon & Schuster's children's division and at Scholastic, and is the author of 12 books for children. Laura Tillotson, formerly senior editor at Front Street/Cricket Books, is now editor of Book Links, the American Library Association magazine that helps librarians and educators connect children with high-quality books. Colorado Feels The Pinch At Casey Middle School in Boulder Valley, CO, for instance, cuts have forced the librarian to work part time in a library closed for one hour during every school day. "I think it's obvious that our kids have a tough time getting into the library and finding the books they need," Principal Ellen Miller-Brown told the News. As library jobs disappear gradually, Colorado's state library predicts that by 2010, there may be no new library media graduates in the state.--Alexis Sinclair Archie Visits the Library
Kate Banks, author of The Night Worker (Farrar, 2000), is the fifth winner of the annual Charlotte Zolotow Award for outstanding writing in a children's picture book. The award is given by the Cooperative Children's Book Center, a library of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Banks's story is about a young boy's fascination with his father's work on a night-time construction project. The boy's dream comes true, when he is given his own hard hat and allowed to accompany his father to work. The Night Worker is the fourth picture book in which Banks has been paired with illustrator Georg Hallensleben.
Betty Carter (left), a professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University in Denton, TX, retired at the end of last year to pursue writing and consulting projects.
Colorado, site of two studies that proved the educational benefit of school libraries, doesn't do much better than many other states in funding them. The Rocky Mountain News recently reported that per-pupil spending on print materials fell 50 percent statewide, between 1994 and 1999. Spending in middle schools declined 25 percent during that period, and spending in high schools fell 35 percent, according to the state library. At the elementary school level, more than a quarter of schools have no library media staff at all.
This month's issue of Archie comics features a tale about Betty and her buddies visiting Teen'scape, the Los Angeles Public Library's (LAPL) technologically advanced destination for young adults. The 2-D caper has turned LAPL's young adult services staff (who appear prominently in the story) into celebrities. "We've had so many people come in and ask us to sign [the comic]," says YA Director
Georgette Todd. Betty's story has an ending that will warm librarians' hearts:after touring Teen'scape, the comic characters persuade their town council to add a teen room to the local library.
The Scoop on Spanish Books
Criticas, a new quarterly publication dedicated to books in Spanish, will debut in April. The publication will serve as an English-speaker's guide to the latest Spanish- language titles from Latin America and Spain, and will focus on titles originally written in Spanish. Criticas will carry
feature stories on Spanish-language publishers, as well as reviews of children's books, reference, and how-to books, romance, nonfiction, and audiobooks. Reviews will be written by bilingual librarians. Criticas, created jointly by School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, will also appear in June, August, and December.
