YALSA offers more than $40,000 in grants and awards to librarians and authors who serve young adults each year. Please click on the individual grant for application information. YALSA also sponsors one Spectrum Scholar and two Emerging Leaders each year, using funds provided by the Friends of YALSA.

Members can also receive the YALSA Presidential Citation, which recognizes an individual or group for outstanding contribution to either YALSA or the profession of young adult librarianship, but does not include a monetary reward.

Monetary Awards and Grants

• Baker and Taylor/YALSA Conference Grants. This grant is funded by the Baker and Taylor Company. The two grants of $1,000 each are awarded to librarians who work directly with young adults in a public or school library to enable them to attend the Annual Conference for the first time. Applications must be received in the YALSA office by December 1.
• BWI/YALSA Collection Development Grant. This annual grant is funded by BWI and awards $1,000 for collection development to two YALSA members who represent a public library, and who work directly with young adults ages 12 to 18. Applications must be received in the YALSA office by December 1.
• YALSA/Greenwood Publishing Group Service to Young Adults Achievement Award. This grant of $2,000 is funded by Greenwood Publishing and recognizes the national contributions of a YALSA member who has demonstrated unique and sustained devotion in two or more of the following areas to young adult services: promoting literature or programming for young adults, conducting and publishing research about young adults, mentoring other professionals in the field, or for notable efforts in the work of the Young Adult Library Services Association.  The purpose of the cash award will be to enable the recipient to further his or her good work in the field of young adult librarianship. The award will next be given in 2010, with the applicatications due Dec. 1, 2009.
• The MAE Award for Best Literature Program for Teens. The MAE Award is designed to honor a member of YALSA who has developed an outstanding reading or literature program for young adults. The award provides $500 to the winner and an additional $500 to the winner's library. The award is made possible through the Margaret A. Edwards Trust. Applications must be received in the YALSA office by December 1.
• Frances Henne/YALSA/VOYA Research Grant. This grant of $1,000 is to provide seed money for small scale projects which will encourage research that responds to the YALSA Research Agenda. Applications must be received in the YALSA office by December 1.
• Great Books Giveaway Competition.  Each year the YALSA office receives approximately 1200 newly published children's, young adult and adult books, videos, CD's and audio cassettes for review. YALSA and the cooperating publishers are offering one year's worth of review materials as a contribution to a library in need. Applications must be received in the YALSA office by the first business day of December. The estimated value of this collection is $25,000.

Scholarships, Stipends, and Fellowships

Funding for YALSA's sponsorship of the Spectrum Scholars and Emerging Leaders programs come from the Friends of YALSA. Funding for the Young Adult Literature Symposium Stipends come from the William C. Morris Endowment.

• Spectrum Scholarship. Each year, YALSA sponsors one Spectrum Scholar. Established in 1997, the Spectrum Scholarship Program is ALA's national diversity and recruitment effort designed to address the specific issue of under-representation of critically needed ethnic librarians within the profession while serving as a model for ways to bring attention to larger diversity issues in the future. YALSA sponsors a Spectrum Scholar with an interest in serving youth ages 12-18 in a library setting. Applications are accepted October to March each year.
• Emerging Leaders. The Emerging Leaders program enables newer librarians from across the country to participate in problem-solving work groups; network with peers; gain an inside look into ALA structure, and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity. It puts them on the fast track to ALA and professional leadership. Each Emerging Leader receives up to $YALSA sponsors two Emerging Leaders each year. Applications are due July 31 each year.
• Young Adult Literature Symposium Stipends. In even years, YALSA holds the Young Adult Literature Symposium and provides up to two stipends for attendance during a symposium year. Both stipends offer up to $1,000 in funds for travel and registration. One stipend will be awarded to a library worker who works directly with young adults, with one to ten years' experience and the other will be awarded to a student enrolled in an ALA-accredited MLS program at the time of the symposium. The 2010 symposium will be in Albuquerque, N.M., Nov. 5-7. Stipend applications are due Jan. 4, 2010.

Non-monetary Awards