What happens at Affiliate Assembly?

AASL Affiliate Assembly met this morning.  We were represented by Amy Short and Sharon Hamer, and I went along too.  This group is where representatives from school library organizations throughout the country come to share ideas and concerns and to recognize good things that are happening in the field. Over the years, we’ve gotten some terrific ideas here from other state initiatives.  For instance, check out what Colorado is up to!

MSLA sends two representatives to the assembly as voting members.  We are then grouped by region, and we belong to the New England region, called Region 1 here.  We sit with our region and share.  Ours is the only region that has formed a professional organization (NESLA), and our affiliate assembly representatives are also our representatives to NESLA.  Within our region, we elect a director, who sits on the board of the AASL Executive Board and helps shape their policies.  The regional directors spend an enormous amount of time meeting while we are at ALA to plan and organize for AASL.  As of this weekend, Valerie Diggs from MSLA stepped down after four years in this position, and turned the responsibility over to Michelle Luhtala of Connecticut.  This morning we discussed how Region 1 states select their delegates and got some good ideas for refining our own selection process. Sharon Hamer was nominated as our regional representative alternate to work with Michelle at our meetings.   Sharon and Amy will be sharing information about the specific work of this affiliate assembly with MSLA through our next issue of the MSLA Forum.