ALSC Blog. http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/

The Association for Library Service to Children uses its professional blog to publish regular posts on current issues and novel ideas relevant to children’s librarianship, as well as cover “programs, conferences, initiatives, resources, and activities of interest.” Posts offer practitioners’ insights into a wide variety of events and topics (from “Tips for ALSC online education courses” to “Sensory Storytime: A (brief) How-To Guide”). Parents and teachers can also benefit from many of these professional’s recommendations relating to activities, current media, and childhood development. But librarians are, of course, the target audience: current practitioners are sure to benefit from ASLC’s innovative ideas for programs and services, as well as its thorough coverage and recommendations of events. ( )

ALSC Blog is the official blog of the Association for Library Service to Children. The blog is intended to be a resource for children’s librarians to get news and issues in the field of children’s librarianship as well as information on activities, programs, conferences, and resources in which children’s librarians would be interested. Its bloggers are a group of volunteers from ALSC members. Information on each of the current bloggers can be found in a side page of the blog’s website. The blog appears well maintained and kept up to date. It covers a number of different areas within youth librarianship including audiobooks, e-readers and e-books, professional development, library outreach, summer reading, storytime, and early literacy. It also features a poll and a calendar of ALSC events. The blog is able to be searched through the search box or by selecting a category from the long list. Undoubtedly, this blog is an invaluable tool for children’s librarians. ( )

The ALSC blog is an excellent resource for information on both what is happening within the American Library Association's Association for Library Service to Children but also information on what various youth services librarians around the US are doing to provide innovative library services to young patrons. In addition to posts about things such as the ALSC's elections, conferences, and donations, it also includes posts about a variety of programming and library events that either regular contributors to the blog or guest contributors have recently put on at their libraries. These range from story times to STEM programs to programs and workshops for parents and are aimed to inspire readers of the blog to develop their own new programs. The blog also addresses issues such as technology use by young children and presents a variety of views on such topics. It is easy to navigate as it makes excellent use of categories to narrow posts to specific topics and is searchable. ( )

The official blog for the Association for Library Service to Children provides users with information regarding news, current issues, programs, conferences, initiatives, resources, and other activities of interest all related to the sphere of children’s literature and library services. The ALSC is comprised of a network of more than 4,000 individuals, including librarians, publishers, children’s literature experts, and many others who are all committed to providing high quality library services to children and youth. Updated at least daily by a variety of ALSC bloggers, users can navigate past posts through the extensive category list found on the far right side, by specific bloggers or subjects ranging from topics of child advocacy to digital world to information literacy to outreach to professional development to story time, just to name a few. Each post is engaging yet brief and with accompanying photographs and active links. ( )

The blog of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) is aimed at keeping ALSC members, children’s librarians, and others who provide services to children aware of the latest news and trends in the field of library service to children. Blog posts touch upon such topics as programming ideas, book recommendations, professional development opportunities, current events, and ALSC news and upcoming events (such as elections and conferences). An extensive list of categories on one side of the page allows for easy searching of topics. The blog posts themselves are visually clean and simple, with black text upon a white background and pictures integrated throughout. Each post includes tags for easily finding related posts. Some of the posts encourage readers to comment by asking thought-provoking questions. Blog posts are well-written. This blog is recommended for librarians who work with children, as it not only enables them to keep up with the latest trends and news in the field of children’s librarianship, but also provides many ideas for improving one’s practice and service to children. ( )