NEWS For Immediate Release April 16, 2013

Contact: Jaclyn Finneke

CHICAGO – The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), has launched its Teen Read Week 2013 website www.ala.org/teenread. This year, Teen Read Week takes place Oct. 13- 19 with a theme that encourages teens to ‘Seek the Unknown @ the library’ by reading for the fun of it.

Teen Read Week (TRW) is a time to celebrate reading for fun while encouraging teens to take advantage of reading in all its forms — books, magazines, e-books, audiobooks and more. It is also a great opportunity to encourage teens to become regular library users.

And with the website now live, visitors can now sign up to become members for free and access a variety of resources that will help them encourage teens to celebrate reading. These include:

• Planning tools: Activity and planning ideas, publicity tools, checklists;
• 2013 theme logo: Members can download a low-res version of the Seek the Unknown logo;
• Grants: Qualified libraries can apply for the 2013 Dollar General Literacy Foundation grant that offers 10 libraries $1,000 each to help with TRW activities;
• Showcase: Share your TRW events and ideas while also adding your library to the Google map;
• Products: Find official TRW themed products such as posters, bookmarks, the Teen Read Week manual and more at the ALA Store;
•  Forums: Talk to others and share ideas, plans and resources for Teen Read Week.

Visitors are highly recommended to sign up and become members of the site because it’s the best way to utilize all the resources made available for Teen Read Week.

Educators aren’t the only ones who can utilize the website. Publishers and other corporate groups can become sponsors to help YALSA and Teen Read Week. Past sponsors include Penguin Books for Young Readers and ALA Graphics. For more information on how to become a sponsor, please contact YALSA’s media sales representative, Bill Spilman, at bill@innovativemediasolutions.com. 

Teen Read Week™ is a national adolescent literacy initiative created by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). It began in 1998 and is held annually during the third week of October. Its purpose is to encourage teens to be regular readers and library users.

YALSA is a division of the American Library Association. For more than 50 years, it has been the world leader in selecting books, videos and audiobooks for teens.

For more than 50 years, YALSA has worked to build the capacity of libraries and librarians to engage, serve and empower teens.  For more information about YALSA or to access national guidelines and other resources go to www.ala.org/yalsa, or contact the YALSA office by phone, (800) 545-2433, ext. 4390, or email, yalsa@ala.org.

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