My Name is Monica and I’m a blogger…

… and a member of the 2008 Newbery Committee.

As some already know, at the recent ALA conference in Seattle there was quite a flurry of conversation about blogging when on award committees. Having posted a few weeks back about what I thought I could do based on my reading of the rules, I was puzzled by what I was hearing.

You see, I had hoped that I would be able to encourage readers of this blog to give me their impressions and opinions about eligible books. And to get those I figured I might have to occasionally ask the sort of questions that might give some of my personal impressions and opinions of the very same books. After all the hoopla I don’t know how comfortable I feel doing that any more, but at least I am very relieved to know that I and all other bloggers on these committees, present and future, will be able to do so.

See Debra Lau Whelan’s SLJ article, “Should Members of Book Award Committees Be Allowed to Blog?” for a good overview of this issue.