About BAYA

[San Francisco] Bay Area Young Adult Librarians is an organization for teen services professionals working in public and school libraries.

We provide continuing education, networking, and professional support for librarians.

We review fiction and nonfiction books and publish bi-monthly reviews.

2023 BAYA Officers Bios

BAYA President – Erik Berman (he/him)

Erik Berman is the Teen Services Coordinator for the Alameda County Library system, 2021 CLA Member of the year, and a 2017 Library Journal Mover and Shaker. Erik has focused his efforts on increasing teen involvement and participation through the development of teen programming and the creation of creative spaces for teens. Notable projects include the construction of the San José Public Library’s TeenHQ, a teen-designed and constructed teen center, and makerspace; Archimedes, a teen-designed makerspace in the Fremont Library; and Census and Sensibility, a State Library-sponsored guide to preparing libraries for the 2020 Census. In those rare instances when he isn’t working, Erik can be found reading prodigious amounts of manga and trying not to start any more fires while cooking.

BAYA Vice President – Andrea Mullarkey (they/she)

Andrea is a teen librarian at the Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch of Berkeley Public Library. They are interested in books with protagonists from backgrounds other than theirs, connecting teens around shared interests, and building safer spaces at the library.

BAYA Treasurer – Beth Wrenn-Estes

A picture of Beth. She has small smile, bangs, and lightly purple tinted hair that falls just below her shoulders. She is wearing a blue and white striped shirt, small hanging earrings, and a pendant necklace on a chain. — Beth – Treasurer

Beth has held positions in school and public libraries since graduating from the University of Denver School of Information and Library Science in 2000. Her first job out of library school was as the Manager of Technical Services, Collection Development, and Acquisitions for Denver Public Schools in Colorado. Before starting teaching for SJSU full-time she worked at Lone Tree Library in Douglas County, CO. Beth was a youth services librarian and was responsible for both collection, programming, and services for the children’s department. She is passionate about libraries and especially serving youth. Beth has taught in the iSchool at San Jose State University for the past 13 years as well as currently the Business Manager of the California Library Association and the Treasurer for BAYA.
Beth moved to El Cajon, CA. from the bay area in October of 2017 to be close to her daughter and granddaughters.

BAYA Secretary – Angela Cox

Angela C – Secretary

For 37 years, Angela has been the Young Adult/Teen Services Librarian at the Richmond Public Library.

BAYA Book Review Editor, GoodReads, and Website Reviews Guru – Jessica Lundin (she/her)

Picture of Jessica. Jessica is smiling, has black sunglasses on, and has short straight brown hair. — Jessica – Website Manager

Jessica works as the Children’s and Teen Services Librarian at a San Josè Public Library Branch location. She enjoys developing crafts for all ages, making weird voices during storytime, and taking notes. When not updating the BAYA website, she enjoys morning jogs, cooking AND baking, crafting AND painting, and long drives with audiobooks.

BAYA President-Elect – Erik Berman (he/him)

BAYA Vice President-Elect – Kirstin Mandalay (she/her)

Kirstin began working in teen services in 2016 and discovered the joy of working with middle school and high school students! This is Kirstin’s fifth consecutive year as a BAYA officer. Kirstin loves to connect school and public librarians, library students, and library staff who work with middle school and high school teens. Her goals at BAYA are to share, collaborate, encourage, and celebrate services to teens.

BAYA Website Manager – Megan Maloy (she/her)

Megan is a librarian at TeenHQ in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. She worked on youth civic engagement with SJ Engage and digital inclusion for San José through SJ Access and supports the San José Youth Commission. She maintains a diverse collection of young adult titles for the library and has presented at various library conferences. She leads a professional development opportunity for all library staff through Mock Printz book training and created the YA Friday blog series that features young adult titles every Friday for the past four years. When she’s not blogging or reading, you can find her drinking iced coffee, binge-watching trashy reality tv, and traveling. She wishes her life was a musical, and there is a strong chance that if you begin singing a song, she will finish singing it for you.