The CYBILS Awards is committed to transparency in its operations and decision-making.

To that end, we want to share some of the conversations taking place regarding the desire for continuous improvement of our program.

The Board of Directors  established its Spring Meeting as an opportunity for us to reflect on where we are and identify where we want to go for the coming awards year and beyond. Your observations and feedback provided in our annual participant surveys are a key to setting our agenda. As an all-volunteer group, prioritizing needs is crucial to maintaining respect for the busy lives of participants.

We want to share some of the conversations taking place surrounding proposed changes to the Award. Our agenda includes these priorities:

• Enhance judge and category chair experience with more cohesive processes across categories, to include
  • More concistent communication and training
  • Updated technology tools
• Improve book access and reading volume issues through
  • Extended reading opportunities
  • Calendar adjustments
• Redefine our nomination process for certain panels by
  • Trialing a redistribution of books to new categories
  • Tightening acceptance guideline to allow judges to refocus on literary merit

All of these changes are foundational for our organization, and we’re excited to move decisively from concept to action plan. We believe these shifts will enhance our operations, offer greater flexibility, and position us to expand our recognition of youth literature while improving the participation experience of you, our readers, panelists, judges, and supporters.

We’re excited about the future of the CYBILS, and couldn’t have made these changes without your support and input.

Thank you!