Alice Yucht Receives Award

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SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 2/7/2007

Alice Yucht—author, speaker, blogger, and consultant—is the winner of the 2006-2007 Part-Time Lecturer of the year for Professional Development Studies by Rutgers University's School of Communication, Information and Library Studies.

Yucht, an educator for more than 40 years, worked as a classroom teacher, school and public librarian, university instructor, student-teaching supervisor, educational consultant, lunchroom overseer, and even briefly as a Board of Education member. Professor Jana Varlejs helped bring Yucht to Rutgers in the mid-1980s, and she officially joined as a part-time lecturer in 1988.

Yucht has written two books for school librarians: Elementary School Librarian's Desk Reference: Library Skills and Management Guide and FLIP IT! an Information Skills Strategy for Student Researchers (both Linworth, 1992), the latter of which has been adopted by several school districts.

She also writes for professional publications such as Library Talk and Teacher Librarian. In 1996, Yucht received the George Carlin Award from the Rutgers University Professional Development Studies office as "the instructor who most successfully employs humor to enlighten and educate."

"Alice is a force of nature. Most of her students swear by her teaching, saying that hers should be a required course for school librarians," says Rutgers about her award. "Some students might say that she startled them into education, but everyone agrees that Alice crackles with energy and insight.

"In her blog, Alice in InfoLand, she manages to somehow come across in all three dimensions even while confined to cyberspace."