Elizabeth M. McChesney

Recipient of ALSC’s 2021 Distinguished Service Award, Elizabeth M. McChesney has more than three decades of experience in children’s librarianship. In 2012, as the Director of Children’s Services for the Chicago Public Library she led her team through the transformation of the summer reading program to the nationally-recognized Summer Learning Challenge. This achievement earned her a Library Journal Movers & Shakers Award, the Founder’s Award for Excellence from the National Summer Learning Association and the John Cotton Dana Award. Liz believes in the role of STEAM-based library learning and finds great joy in watching children play, read, and learn in libraries and throughout the community in library-led learning. Liz writes and speaks extensively about library service to children, building successful partnerships, and the role of the 21st Century Library. She passionately believes in the public library as a place of learning and education, joy and wonder for America’s kids and is now serves as a consultant in helping empower librarians across the country to do the same.