The North Carolina School Library Media Association (NCSLMA) is the recipient of the 2013 American Association of School Librarians' (AASL) ABC-CLIO Leadership Grant. Established in 1986 and sponsored by ABC-CLIO, the grant of $1,750 is given to school library associations that are AASL affiliates for planning and implementing leadership programs at the state, regional or local levels.

Through the grant, NCSLMA will implement an Emerging Leaders program. The goals of the program are to encourage new school librarians to become advocates for themselves, NCSLMA and the school library profession and to identify and encourage leadership in the state-level association. To accomplish this, NCSLMA will provide members with a year-long leadership growth experience which will include a two-day face-to-face leadership institute.

NCSLMA will identify a group of up to 15 individuals to participate in a two-day institute focused on leadership skills, advocacy and team-building activities. As a group, participants will develop a year-long advocacy project and work collaboratively through online communication and collaborative space to achieve their goals. Each participant will then be teamed with a mentor for a year to develop strategies to advocate for their school library program and the profession.

“NCSLMA recognizes the importance of fostering school librarian leadership at all levels and their program reflects this,” said Ed Hockersmith, awards committee chair. “The selection committee was particularly impressed by the NCSLMA’s objectives to identify and select librarians who are early in the profession, the development of advocacy tools that address different stakeholder support, and the use of experienced mentors to guide the new school library leaders.”