See Award Books below

NEXT AJLSC GENERAL MEETING -- ALL ARE WELCOME!  Monday, February 13, 2012, at 7:00 pm - @ West Hollywood Branch of the County of Los Angeles Public Library.  This is the beautiful new facility featured in many magazines because of its architecture and giant outdoor public murals.  See details on our Calendar page.

2012 AJL Sydney Taylor Awards - Children's Books - just announced.  Scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Jewish Book Month brochures extend into 2012 - compiled by the Blumenthal Library Staff, Sinai Temple, and Ellen G. Cole, Levine Library, Temple Isaiah, Los Angeles - to print and distribute as you wish...
     (1) IN CELEBRATION OF JEWISH BOOK MONTH: 
                A Selected List of Recent Books and DVDs For Adults for 2012    OR click on  JBM_adult_2011_AJLSC.pdf 
  
     (2) IN CELEBRATION OF JEWISH BOOK MONTH: 
                A Selected List of Recent Books and DVDs For Children and Teens for 2012   OR click on   JBM_children_2011_AJLSC.pdf

2012 AJL CONVENTION will be here in Pasadena - June 17-20, 2012.
 
      Our 2012 Convention Co-Chair are Enid Sperber and Sharon Benamou.  They welcome you and invite you to visit the AJL Website Convention page.  Our special 2012 AJL Convention webpage for all the news, meetings, bulletins, updates is a work-in-progress and will be posted soon. 

     Do you want to be a presenter at our 2012 Convention?  Read the details here -- Call for Papers for the 2012 AJL Pasadena Convention; contact Co-Chair Sharon Benamou.

     We want all of our AJLSC members and community members to participate.  Won't you help?

New online forum (listserv):  A Note from the SSC President, Joyce Levine: (excerpt from Nov.-Dec. 2011 AJL Newsletter)
AJL's SSC Division (Synagogues, Schools and Centers) is about to launch a major new effort to reach out to institutions who may not yet be members, and who would benefit from our services.  To accomplish this goal, we will be starting a wonderful new listserv tailored specifically for synagogue librarians.  Lisa Silverman, Director of Sinai Temple Blumenthal Library in Los Angeles, graciously offered to start this listserv. The topics under discussion include:  Storytimes, budget, Elazar/Weine, cards/card catalog, volunteers, programs, friends of the library/fundraising, e-books, interns, weeding, book club titles, archives, book fair, websites/facebook/blogs, long term strategy, museums in the library, and library committees.  If you’d like to be included in the AJL-SSC Mini-Listserv, please write to Lisa at lsilverman@sinaitemple.org.

Suzi Dubin writes of 4 online classes starting January 16, 2012 -- offered by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of American Library Association.  The classes are: "Connecting with 'Tween Readers" - "Out of This World Youth Programming" - "Children with Disabilities in the Library" - "Information Literacy--From Preschool to High School."  
   -- To keep current in the field of librarianship, and Judaica librarianship, mark your calendar to check our AJLSC Education webpage regularly.  We link to lots of podcasts of current and past lectures/interviews/workshops, blogs, continuing courses - that are constantly updated.  And check our Resources & Links webpage for all kinds of helpful resources and lists.

The Book of Life is a series of podcasts about Jewish books and authors.  Created and faciliated by AJL's Heidi Estrin for 6 years, on a monthly basis, it is an invaluable resource for listening to interviews about Jewish books.

2011 AJL ANNUAL CONVENTION (June 19 - 22, 2011) is now passed.  But, you can still hear some of the presentations.  The actual Proceedings are in the works.  But, in the meantime,  you can hear podcast of Judaic Audio Lectures, Panel Discussions, Author Talks, Workshops & More on the AJL website -  http://www.jewishlibraries.org/main/Resources/Podcast.aspx

The U.S. Department of Commerce launches DigitalLiteracy.gov, a gateway to materials, research, online learning tools and more to help librarians and educators access and share materials to use when training learners of all ages on topics such as information literacy, computer skills, digital literacies and more.  read more...

Check our Calendar webpage for many continuing education classes - to keep you up-to-date.  Some classes are offered by the American Jewish University's Ostrow Library and by the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. 

A big step forward --- AJL Newsletter, formerly a long-time print publication, is now two electronic publications:  AJL News and AJL Reviews.  Both can now be accessed from the AJL website.
 
The 2011 AJL Sydney Taylor Book Awards are announced on the AJL website in a press release (see also below).   The STBA honor new books for children and teens that exemplify the highest literary standards while authentically portraying the Jewish experience.

AJL Blog Tours -- Many of the STBA winners are interviewed.   Don't miss this!

Keep connected to AJL and new resources the easy way...  Just go to the AJL website (www.JewishLibraries.org) and click on "Read the AJL Blog - People of the Books."  These blogs include links to important resources and documents.  You can even subscribe so that the blog comes to you automatically via email.

Book Club Reading Selections are posted on the AJL website.

An AJL Wiki is being created by AJL members, Diane Romm and Joyce Levine, Co-chairs, AJL Technology Committee.  The AJL Wiki is a one-stop knowledge base for everything related to Judaica librarianship.  They are requesting that everyone contribute ideas and information.  "Together we can create a dynamic source of our collective knowledge that will be invaluable to current and future people who work in Jewish librarianship."  View this excellent work-in-progress at:  http://ajlwiki.pbworks.com

Check our Calendar -- Previous AJLSC Events for summary of past AJLSC programs, including links to resources and photos.