The official blog of Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) provides librarians who deal with teenagers in any context with up -o date-information and resources, spanning organizational developments to popular iphone applications.This diverse mix of practical, scholarly and fun entries keeps the blog from feeling staid or too formal. Following this blog allows YA librarians to find pertinent information on grants, upcoming events, in a tagged format much preferable to slogging through mass-emails and general library interest sites. Whether librarians are looking to learn more about programming games with Scratch, or simply want to know what free things there are to do around the next big conference, this blog provides invaluable information. ( )

The official blog of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) is recommended for any librarian who deals with young adults, whether in a school or public library. The YALSA blog discusses issues in young adult librarianship, but also discusses various services and items that young adults might be interested in but that libraries might not traditionally deal with. For example, there is a feature on this blog called App of the Week in which phone programs that teenagers might enjoy are discussed in some detail; these apps are generally not library-related but are almost all informational if not educational. One of the primary emphases of the YALSA blog is outreach; many included posts address how librarians can reach out to teens and provide services that those teens need, why it is important to reach out to teens and provide useful services, or instances in which a librarian has successfully reached out to teens and worked with them to provide useful services (as in a post about a teen-designed summer reading program). The blog has a clean, uncluttered design and is tagged by author and subject matter, so that other related blog posts can be easily accessed. ( )

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) maintains a blog (available at http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/) that serves a variety of functions, from providing in-depth posts about the standards and practices of youth services to sharing lists of their Twitter updates. This blog is updated almost daily with information pertinent to youth services librarians or school librarians, including reviews of web applications, podcasts that are updated on a regular basis, and general interest pieces. Overall, this is a great introduction to the world of youth librarianship, with a wide variety of content and links to additional sources. ( )

The official blog of the Young Adult Library Services Association helps young adult librarians keep up to date within professional developments, as well as organizational updates. Some posts reflect professional association related resources, such as listing “free things to do” in the area where the 2012 ALA conference is set to occur. Other posts provide professional reference resources, such as a crash course on collection development. These referential posts are full of links with further information, although in the case of the “30 Days of How-To #7: Collection Development on the Fly” post, at least one link leads to a 404 error, the “YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers.” YALSA’s blog is very current, with the mission of publishing information on “time sensitive issues” in a “fast, focused, and flexible format.” Several navigation menus ease various browsing methods, and a categorical menu eases searching within a subject (e.g. Podcasts). The technically heavy focus of the blog encourages YA librarians to stay on trend with applications and many social media outlets. YALSA’s blog also has a calendar of upcoming events, providing an easily accessible reference for how to next get involved with the organization, marking the dates for programs such as an upcoming webinar on graphic novels for tweens, or early bird registration for an upcoming conference. This free digital resource is recommended for librarians serving a young adult audience. ( )

Frequently updated, the blog of the Young Adult Library Services Association covers the practical to the fun, with features like App of the Week and Tweets of the Week. For active librarians, App of the Week may be one of the most useful elements of the blog as a new teen-friendly web application is introduced and explained (examples: Pic Collage and Textastic). The blog invites entries from any interested YA librarians, and the content of the blog is an accordingly diverse mixture—tips for conference attendance, day in the life segments, and advice for engaging library patrons. The layout of the blog makes for easy reading, even if the design could be better. School and public librarians who regularly deal with the teen crowd will find plenty of relevant information in this blog. Recommended. ( )