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CHICAGO — The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has selected Elise Martinez and Meghan Salsbury as the winners of its .

Martinez and Salsbury will each receive a grant of $1,000 for collection development, generously provided by Baker & Taylor.

Elise Martinez is the Teen Services Specialist at the Zion-Benton Public Library in Zion, Illinois.

“Understanding the struggles and gaps in our community’s educational landscape, specifically regarding reading scores, has forced me to take a second look at our collection,” said Martinez. “Teens, specifically non-native English speakers, are gravitating towards graphic novels more than ever before. I am thrilled to be able to utilize the grant money to develop positive reading habits in teens by providing materials that reflects their interests, backgrounds, and identities in a collection that is often forced to take the backseat.”

Meghan Salsbury is the Youth Services Librarian at the Belgrade (Montana) Community Library.

“I am delighted and honored that the Belgrade Community Library has been chosen as a recipient of the YALSA 2019 Collection Development Grant,” said Salsbury. “This grant will help us build our young adult audiobook and non-fiction sections so we can provide new and diverse resources for the teens in our community.”

More information about the , including the application for the next round of the grant, is available on the YALSA page. Applications must be submitted online by Dec. 1, 2019.

The Baker & Taylor Collection Development Grant Jury members are: Chair Andrea Vernola, Shelley Diaz, Jillian Elyse Ehlers, Shayna M. Parr, Christine Pyles, and Melissa McBride.

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.