Written by: Scot Smith
We have posted the ballots for the 2017-2018 Volunteer State Book Award at http://www.tasltn.org/vsba
The ballots are due on Wednesday, May 2. All ballots must be submitted online; there will be no paper ballots.
Remember that in order to participate in the voting, your library must own twelve of the twenty nominated titles.
For a student to vote, he/she must have read at least three of the books from the list of nominated titles. We would like to have more participation from middle and high schools throughout the state. If you have any questions or concerns about voting, please email Scot Smith or Pat Bashir. The contact information is on the VSBA page. We will announce the winners on the TASL website and through the TASL list-serv on Monday, May 9.
A NOTE ABOUT OUR COMMITTEES
Molly Moore, the chair of the publicity committee, has created a VSBA page on Facebook. Check out that page for the latest VSBA news, resources, and suggestions. The members of the newly formed Publicity Committee have made suggestions on how to encourage students to vote for their favorite books on this Facebook page.
Members of the three VSBA Nominating Committees have been hard at work reading and discussing the titles for the 2019-2020 lists. They will meet in late April or early May to finalize those fours lists. We hope to post those lists during the middle of May.
FOLLETT SCHOOL SOLUTIONS TO SPONSOR VSBA DRAWING
We have an exciting announcement about participation in voting for this year’s Volunteer State Book Award. Follett School Solutions has agreed to sponsor a drawing for four sets (that’s twenty books in each division) of 2018-2019 VSBA nominated titles. Follett will donate a set of twenty VSBA titles in each division-Primary, Intermediate, Middle School, and High School–to four lucky libraries. What do you need to do for your library to be eligible to win? Submit your ballots for the 2017-2018 VSBA on or before Wednesday, May 2, 2018.
We hope that this giveaway will increase participation in voting, especially at the middle and high school levels. It does not matter if your library has five or five hundred students who participate in the VSBA voting. If you submit your ballot, your library will have a chance to win twenty free books from Follett. Remember that your library cannot win if you do not submit your ballot. You can find the ballots at https://www.tasltn.org/vsba
We would especially like to thank Tennessee’s two Follett representatives-Jon Duncan and Richie Gibson-for their support with this new initiative.
Scot Smith is the librarian at Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge and also teaches classes in Young Adult Literature at the University of Tennessee. He has been the co-chair of Tennessee's Volunteer State Award since 2010. In 2017, he served as a member of the Michael J. Printz committee and was named an Outstanding Educator by Humanities Tennessee.
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