About the award | Current award recipient | Past award recipients

CLA Young Adult Services Award

The CLA Young Adult Services Award of Achievement recognizes the accomplishments of an exceptional library professional working in young adult services in a public or school library. The award recipient is honored at the CLA annual conference and receives a $500 award, a one-year BAYA membership, and reimbursement for a one-year CLA membership. The CLA Young Adult Services Award is endorsed by the Youth Services Interest Group (YSIG) of CLA.

The California Library Association thanks Bay Area Young Adult Librarians (BAYA) for their support in cultivating library leadership as shown by their sponsorship of the CLA Young Adult Services Award.

Award Information

Submissions for the 2025 Award

The 2025 awards application/nomination period is closed.

Eligibility

• Nominees must have worked for the entire year in a California library.
• Nominees must have one nomination statement and one professional letter of recommendation submitted on their behalf by the nomination deadline.
  • Nomination statement and letter of recommendation must describe the young adult librarian and a meaningful/impactful program they have curated or an achievement they have accomplished in regards to young adult services. The documents must be sent to cbolivar@cla-net.org.
• Nominees do not need to be a CLA member, however, they need to join CLA to receive the award. CLA annual membership fees will be reimbursed by BAYA upon proof of payment.

How to Nominate

Nominators should complete the online application form and submit the following to cbolivar@cla-net.org:

• A nomination statement providing evidence of the nominee’s significant contribution to young adults in their school or public library
• A letter of recommendation for the nomination, identifying the nominee’s achievements while planning and implementing outstanding, creative, and innovative programs or services for young adults (defined as youth between 6^th and 12^th grades) between January 1 and December 31 of the previous year.
• Letter of recommendation may also serve as the nomination statement if the same professional writes both documents.
• Candidates may nominate themselves but must have a professional letter of recommendation written by a colleague or mentor.

Nomination Statements and Letters of Recommendation should be emailed to Robert Karatsu and the files should be labeled as YASA_last name_letter of rec or YASA_last name_nomination (example: YASA_Macriss_letter of rec)

Please note that nominations must be endorsed by a CLA member. If the nominator is not a CLA member, please reach out to Lauren Regenhardt, Co-Chair of CLA’s Youth Services Interest Group, for endorsement.

Current Committee Members

BAYA/YSIG Selection Committee Members

BAYA

Kirstin Mandalay (Chair)

YSIG

Lauren Regenhardt (Chair)

Briana Ochoa (Vice-Chair)

Further Information

• The CLA Young Adult Services Award is coordinated by the Bay Area Young Adult Librarians (BAYA) and CLA’s Youth Services Interest Group.
•  Only individuals who have been formally nominated for the award will be considered.
• BAYA/YSIG reserves the right to not give an award if a qualified candidate is not found.
• Award recipient will be asked to submit a photograph to be used in award publicity.
• Award recipient will be asked to present their young adult programs or services at a BAYA meeting (in-person, live-streamed, or pre-recorded).
• If you have any questions, please contact Lauren Regenhardt

2025 Award Recipient

Jessica Lundin, San José Public Library

Jessica Lundin has worked with youth since serving as a camp counselor in high school. She worked as a middle school teacher after graduating from Mills College with a BA in Biology. Making a career switch, she got a Master's in Library and Information Science from San José State's iSchool in 2013.

In 2016, she began working at the San José Public Library's Dr. Roberto Cruz Alum Rock Branch, where she worked with teens and adults. In 2022, Jessica transferred to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Main to work at Youth Services, specifically as a Teen Librarian at TeenHQ.

After starting at TeenHQ, Jessica coordinated a teen entrepreneur program in partnership with the WeThrive organization, which provided curriculum and seed funding to help teens learn about and start their own small businesses. The program evolved following sessions in 2023 and 2024 and partially merged with the California State Library grant-funded program after it ended, ARTrepreneurs, which was also hosted at TeenHQ and focused on craft and creative entrepreneurship. Since 2025, Jessica has updated and redesigned the curriculum and is running her own version of WeThrive, now called ARTrepreneurs (2.0), where the library provides seed funding, and teens are invited to sell at multiple pop-up markets and craft fairs organized by Jessica.

Since the program began in 2023, 39 teens have completed it, forming 29 businesses. Over the course of four sessions, teens have received over $1,800 in seed funding and generated over $2,850 in income. At least 12 businesses have taken the opportunity to come back after the program to sell at other Craft Fairs made available by the library.  One of the top earners has sold at three fairs so far, generating nearly $500 in income, and hopes to be able to buy herself a new cellphone by the end of 2025 with her small business profits.

In addition to this flagship program, Jessica Lundin has been a Team Lead for the Graphic Novel Making Contest for the past 6 years, runs monthly TeenHQ MakerSpace programs, helps manage the TeenHQ YA Collection, and selects YA Nonfiction and YA Graphic Novels for the system. As part of her professional development, Jessica is a proud member of Bay Area Young Adult Librarians and has acted as the Secretary for the past three years.

When Jessica isn't constantly thinking about work, she paints ceramic and watercolor pieces, does cross-stitch, and cosplays with her partner in mischief and mayhem, her husband.