2012 Events

20th Annual Frances Clark Sayers Lecture with Pam Muñoz Ryan

The UCLA Department of Information Studies presents the 20th Annual Frances Clarke Sayers Lecture on March 3, featuring award-winning author Pam Muñoz Ryan. Ryan, a native of Bakersfield, CA, is the author of over 30 children’s and young adult books including The Dreamera fictionalized biography of Pablo Neruda, and When Marian Sang, the story of a concert given by African-American opera singer, Marian Anderson, at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. In honor of Frances Clark Sayers (1897-1989), former faculty member and influential children’s librarian, author, and advocate, the information studies department has sponsored the annual lecture series since 1996. For more information about this lecture series, please visit the IS Department Webpage.


First YACS Meeting 2012-13

Monday, October 8th, 2012
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm
@ IS Commons

Bring ideas for future YACS programming. Meet your fellow YACSers and talk about all things great and youthful in our public libraries! Snacks snacks too of course!
AND we still need officers for the Vice President, Secretary, and co-Treasurer positions. We’d love to have these filled by first year IS students to learn the ropes for next year.


YACS Hosts a Discussion with Teen Librarian, Erica Cuyugan

Erica Cuyugan, Teen Librarian at Santa Monica Public Library, will speak to us about the Eureka! Leadership Program and the resulting project, Voices of Santa Monica. She will also share her thoughts on School Outreach and Partnerships. Erica is a graduate of UCLA, and looks forward to sharing her professional experience with future YA librarians!

February 4th, 2012 at 12:30 in GSEIS Room 111.


Books Beyond Bars, ALA Student Chapter at UCLA, and YACS Present:

Who has a say? Power structures and their effect on juvenile detention center librarianship with Guest Speaker Jeanie Austin.

Monday, October 29th

12:30 – 1:30 pm, GSEIS Room 111

Jeanie Austin, a GSLIS PhD student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and project coordinator of Mix IT Up! Jeanie’s research interests include power of and access to information and and information sharing in radical political movements. Jeanie has been a juvenile detention center librarian since Fall of 2009. In 2010, the GSLIS faculty awarded jeanie the Social Justice Award for her commitment to fight poverty, hunger, and injustice.


Last YACS Meeting

Monday, June 4, 2012
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm
@ IS Commons

Fellow YACSers,

Year’s end means wrapping some stuff up. The final meeting will be Monday June 4th, 12:30 – 1:30. If you haven’t noticed yet, there is a graffiti wall YACS set up in the LIS hall (Thanks Irene!!!!). Feel free to write notes to fellow students who are continuing or graduating.

Marcia Melkonian
YACS Co-President, 2011-2012


Meet Anushka Ravishankar

(Often Described as the Indian “Dr Seuss”)
Friday, April 20, 2012
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
@ Charles E. Young Research Library Presentation Room

One of India’s leading children’s writers, Anushka Ravishankar specializes in nonsense verse, which has earned her lofty comparisons with Dr. Seuss. Inspired by Lewis Carroll, Edward Gorey, and Edward Lear, she has written more than fifteen books of verse, fiction, and non-fiction, for which she has received international acclaim. Her latest book, Excuses Excuses, comes out in May.

Born and raised in India, Ravishankar earned a college degree in mathematics, did postgraduate work in operational research, then worked as a software programmer. After her daughter was born, she couldn’t find any suitable Indian children’s books, so she began writing her own. First published in a children’s magazine, then in book format, the stories proved popular; today, she is an associate editor for the Indian office of the children’s publisher Scholastic. Many of her books are available in the U.S., and several have been translated into French, Japanese, and Korean.

Ravishankar will talk about how she got her start and her writing process, then she’ll read from several of her books. Admission is free, but RSVPs are requested.

David G. Hirsch
Librarian for Middle Eastern Studies, YRL
Tel: +1 310 825 2930
email: dhirsch@library.ucla.edu


YACS presents: Dr. Claudette S. McLinn

The African American and Multi-cultural experience
in Children’s literature

Monday, March 5, 2012
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm @ GSEIS Room 111

Dr. Claudette S. McLinn is Executive Director, Center for the Study of Multicultural Children’s Literature, Inglewood, California, which is an organization for the advocacy and promotion of children’s literature about the multicultural and African American experience. During her professional career, she has been a teacher, school librarian, district supervisor of ESEA Title V Library Services, and field administrator for elementary and secondary school libraries in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She is a former adjunct professor at California State University, Long Beach, teaching graduate courses in children’s and young adult literature. As a Life Member in the American Library Association, Dr. McLinn’s committee service has included her leadership as first African American chair of the Pura Belpré Medal Award Committee, and member of the Newbery Medal Award Committee, the Coretta Scott King Book Award Jury, and, presently, the 2013 Caldecott Medal Award Committee. She is a contributor to the book titled, Multicultural Literature and Response: Affirming Diverse Voices, recently published by Libraries Unlimited. Her chapter is titled, “Exploring African American Children’s Literature.”


YACS Members Host Allen Say’s Booksigning at the
the 2012 Frances Clarke Sayers Lecture

The UCLA Department of Information Studies Presents Award-Winning Children’s Literature Author and Illustrator Allen Say

The 2012 Frances Clarke Sayers Lecturer

Sunday, February 12, 2012
4:00 pm
Korn Auditorium on the UCLA Campus
Booksigning and Champagne Reception to follow

The Frances Clarke Sayers Lecture is an annual UCLA event that features the best of today’s award-winning authors and illustrators of children’s literature. The event is sponsored by the UCLA Department of Information Studies as a tribute to Frances Clarke Sayers (1897-1989), a former UCLA faculty member who was a noted American children’s librarian, author of children’s books, lecturer, and outspoken advocate for excellence in children’s literature. Frances Clarke Sayers was also an eloquent storyteller and educator. Because she played each of these roles with passion and conviction, she became one of the most influential American children’s librarians of her generation.

FREE for Students (Non-Student Tickets are $15 per person)
(parking and booksigning reception included)
Allen Say’s books will be available for purchase.
RSVP no later than February 9, 2012
Contact Nick Belli at UCLA at 310-206-0375 or nbelli@support.ucla.edu
to reserve a space and to get parking directions.

Allen Say was born in Yokohama, Japan, and raised there by a Japanese American mother and a Korean father who had been adopted by British parents and raised in Shanghai. At age 12, four years after his parents’ divorce, Say went to live with his grandmother, but he received her permission a short time later to live alone. The boy apprenticed himself for many years to his favorite cartoonist, Noro Shinpei, an experience detailed in his autobiographical novel The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice. When his father decided to move to the United States with his new family, Allan Say was invited to come along. In the years before becoming a full-time author and illustrator, Say worked as a sign painter and photographer, as well as being drafted into the U.S. Army. He pursued photography as a career choice, but he was encouraged to explore illustration. He is best known for his book Grandfather’s Journey, a picture book detailing his grandfather’s voyage from Japan to the United States and back again, which won the 1994 Caldecott Medal. His latest book, Drawing from Memory, was