YALSA blog: an interview with 2012-2013 President Jack Martin

June 10, 2011

Did you vote in the ALA elections this year? I did, but it was the first time I’d done so since becoming a YALSA member in 2009. In previous years, I didn’t feel familiar enough with the organization–what would these candidates be doing if they were elected?–and I was overwhelmed by the long lists of names and the sheer number of positions I needed to choose people for. The elections seemed big and huge and unknown and unknowable. (I think this is, in part, responsible for the 17% voter turnout we saw this year.)

In the years since then, I’ve gotten to know YALSA and its structure a little better and as I’ve gotten more involved and met other members, I’m starting to recognize names on those lists of candidates, so the elections seem a lot less scary. I’ve also grown more invested in seeing YALSA (and ALA, too, I suppose, though I feel less connected to ALA than to YALSA) move in smart directions and in seeing good work be done by the organization, so voting seemed a lot more important to me this year.

And I know that ALA and YALSA can seem faceless and huge, but your vote does matter. If you look at the huge PDF with election results for ALA’s divisions and roundtables, you’ll find candidates who won by twenty votes, or ten votes, or even one vote in a few instances. If you have any preference at all for who runs ALA and your divisions and roundtables, you really, really need to vote. It matters.

Anyway, the elections came in about a month and a half ago, and I was excited to see that Jack Martin had been elected president for the 2012-2013 term. I recently had the opportunity to interview him for the YALSA blog, and in the course of responding to one of my questions, he used the phrase “more cool everything!” which I think is my new mantra at work and at home.

Click through for Jack’s thoughts on teens’ involvement in YALSA, raising YALSA’s profile nationally, creating opportunities for new members, and whether pirates or ninjas would emerge victorious in a fight.

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Tags: ala, interviews, jack martin, professional involvement, yalsa, yalsa blog