Aww, yeah – how’s that for a screencap? Don’t rub your eyes – you’re not watching C-SPAN2 in the year 2000 (wildest dreams just don’t come true that easily). It’s video of the 2000 Newbery/Caldecott Medal announcement.

2000 isn’t that far back, so it’s interesting to see the differences between these fairly calm “ALA Book Awards” and the near rave atmosphere of Youth Media Awards of today.

I’ve posted retro Newbery/Caldecott award videos in the past (2002, 2001)  and mentioned that it wasn’t that long ago that the speaker held up a physical copy of the winning book. Now the winner reveal is all PowerPointed out. For 2014, I’d like to see PowerPoint and physical copy – preferably pulled out of a dry ice-filled cauldron¹. Keep in mind that I’m angling to be the Youth Media Awards producer someday – this is just one of the fresh ideas that I’d bring to the job.

¹Although it is the whole physical copy thing that leads to a bit of confusion during the Caldecott honor announcements in the video, so perhaps this is not a good idea.

Factoid: 2000 was the year of the first Printz award – can you name it?