Issue 28 Spring 2000 Through the Chair's Eyes ->>Full version <<- Annie Everall	Collections under which this       article appears:       Y L G Other Articles by Author

Back in 1996, I was sitting in a restaurant with Keith Barker, Karen Usher, Lesley Sim & Linda Saunders (after one of our post YLG national committee meeting trips to the theatre), holding forth about how we should make the year 2000 a really special year - a real celebration of children's books and reading and a coming together with other colleagues in SLG & SLA. After giving me enough rope to hang myself on my own enthusiasm and egged on by Keith, they said that it was a brilliant idea and that I had to agree to be YLG's Millennium Chair and see it through from 'the hot seat' so to speak. At the time it seemed such a long way away and yet now I can hardly believe that I'm nearly half way through my year as Chair…and what an amazing year it is turning out to be!

Chairing the Carnegie Greenaway Medals panel is proving to be both exciting and challenging. The judges are fantastic! A dedicated and passionate group who have worked really hard to ensure that from a wonderful long list, representing some talented writers and illustrators, a very strong short list has emerged. Choosing an eventual winner is going to be no easy task let me tell you! Look out too, for the new "Best of Carnegie" and "Best of Kate Greenaway" 1999 booklists being produced for the first time this year. They are being published as a direct result of requests from you and they look fantastic, thanks to Anne Marley our Communications & Training Officer, and her talented designer in Hampshire. I think they will be a great tool for helping us promote quality books to children and young people.

I also hope that I'll get to see many of you at this year's 'Under the Covers' special Millennium Conference. We are organising it jointly with the School Libraries Group and the School Library Association and it is taking place from the 6th - 9th July at Imperial College London. If you haven't already booked your place, do so as soon as you can, as it's going to be THE EVENT of the Millennium. I think it will be a brilliant opportunity for networking, sharing great ideas and good practice and every delegate will also get some wonderful goodies, thanks to the generosity of the publishers. We have an impressive line up of speakers, seminar sessions on 12 different topics, early bird breakfast sessions and a star studded cast of some of the best known children's authors and illustrators. All in all, guaranteed to send you back to work totally inspired. For this special year, the announcement of the 1999 Carnegie & Greenaway medals will take place at the conference too. If that hasn't tempted you to book, don't forget the social side of things too…with a chance to wish Red Fox a Happy 10th Birthday, a Potent Poetry and Storytelling Barbecue hosted by our very own Liz Weir( in the company of a number of brilliant poets and storytellers) and a Mega Millennium Children's Book Quiz with some fabulous prizes on offer courtesy of the publishers whose support has been fantastic.

The one big sadness I have is that, having persuaded me to agree to be Chair in this special year, Keith Barker's sudden and untimely death in November 1998 means that he isn't here to share the celebrations. Many of you knew Keith and had a great deal of respect and affection for him. This conference is giving us a wonderful opportunity to honour his memory, through the presentation of the Keith Barker Millennium Children's Book Awards. These are one off awards for the best books of the century in terms of books that we feel have made an impact on children or children's literature. I hope you have all returned your voting booklets and cast your votes. Did you all find it as hard as I did to choose just 20, particularly in the later periods. As I write this, the votes are being counted and I can't wait to see who the final winners will be. Many of you have said that you found it hard to send back the voting booklet as you wanted to keep it as a memento. I do have some spare copies so if anyone would like another one, please get in touch with me. The awards are being financed through a mixture of individual donations and sponsorship. Many people have said that they would like to make a donation to support Keith's awards. If you do, please make your cheques payable to 'The Keith Barker Fund' and send them to me at 8 Bridges Road, Norton Canes, Nr Cannock, Staffs WS11 3PB

I've been working in the field of children's library services for more years than I care to remember and still I think it is one of the most stimulating, creative, innovative and thoroughly enjoyable areas of librarianship to be in. However, these are challenging times and YLG has to be able to meet and rise to those challenges. As such our key issues for this year include:

• Finding ways of working within the tensions of changing structures and services, budget cuts and financial limitations set against opportunities and challenges for developing services and being creative
• Promoting the importance of maintaining specialist children's book and media knowledge
• Promoting the importance of advocacy for the work and specialism of children and youth librarians.
• Sustaining an awareness amongst the Departments of Information and Library Studies of the importance of education for and research in children's librarianship and the need to retain specialist training in children's work as part of courses.
• Finding ways of encouraging and supporting local YLG members to stand for local committees to help ensure a strong and vibrant local voice for children's librarianship and helping their employers see the benefits of supporting this, back in the workplace.
• Finding ways of supporting members faced with the deterioration in availability of practical and developmental training in working with children & young people within their local authorities
• Looking at ways of being proactive in developing partnerships and in moving forward on funding opportunities
• Developing mechanisms for enabling local members to increase their awareness on major issues in order to make local response.

One of my key themes as Chair is to encourage people to read more children's books and to talk to other colleagues about the books they read. This year we have introduced 'Booktalking' slots at all of our national committee meetings. A few people bring a novel published in 2000 that they have recently read and enjoyed and present it to the rest of the committee. It is a brilliant way of picking up on great new titles, improving our stock knowledge, keeping an eye out for likely contenders for next years Carnegie Medal while at the same time reminding us that these are the very tools of our trade. It's also great fun and has led to 'arguments' between committee members as to who is going to borrow a recommended title next. Some of the titles we have talked about so far are:

• David Almond - Heaven Eyes
• Diana Hendry - Harvey Angel Beats Time
• Gaye Hicylmaz - Girl in Red
• Pete Johnson - Creeper
• Nick Manns - Control Shift
• Linda Newbery & Chris D'Lacey - From E to You
• William Nicholson - The Windsinger
• Celia Rees - Truth or Dare
• Marcus Sedgewick - Floodland

I am hoping that I will get the opportunity to visit as many of YLG branches as I can during the year. I visited London & South East for their Carnegie Greenaway discussions, and am visiting the North West branch in June and Wales in September. If you think there is anything I can do for your branch then please contact me: anne.everall@birmingham.gov.uk or Tel: 0121 303 3368)