91´«Ã½

CHICAGO — The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has chosen Dr. Amanda Waugh, Instructional Librarian at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, MD, to present a paper at YALSA’s Trends Impacting YA Services session at the 2019 91´«Ã½ Midwinter Meeting in Seattle on Saturday, January 26.

Dr. Waugh’s paper is titled “Feels Like Home: The Digital Information Practices of Teen Fans” and “addresses an understudied population, teens, in an understudied area, online fan communities, and an understudied problem, information seeking in a single community but across platforms (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Discord, and YouTube).”

“Those who work with young people will certainly appreciate the relevance of this research to our daily practice, and the potential applications of these findings,” said Tess Wilson, chair of the Midwinter Paper Presentation Planning Committee. “And while this research focuses a specific segment of the community, the Midwinter Paper Presentation Planning Committee feels these findings will inevitably be helpful for library staff seeking deeper online engagement with their young patrons.”

funds one individual each year to attend the 91´«Ã½ Midwinter Meeting to present a paper that addresses a topic from YALSA’s . Waugh will receive up to $1,500 to help defray travel, registration and hotel costs. In addition to presenting the paper at the Trends Impacting YA Services event, her paper will also be published in a future issue of YALSA’s peer-reviewed, open source journal, .

To learn more about YALSA programs and events at the 2019 91´«Ã½ Midwinter Meeting, visit .

The mission of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) is to support library staff in alleviating the challenges teens face, and in putting all teens ‒ especially those with the greatest needs ‒ on the path to successful and fulfilling lives. For more information about YALSA or to access national guidelines and other resources go to , or contact the YALSA office by phone, 800-545-2433, ext. 4390; or e-mail: yalsa@ala.org.