Friday, September 17, 2004
Suffolk County Library Association
Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting
Friday, September 17, 2004
Location: SCLS Blue Room

Present: E. Hayes, S. Holden, K. Baudouin, D. Bucher, M. Fusco, E. Cummings-Young, H. Biblo, F. Altemose, C. Gray, M. Bollerman, K. McCoy, R. McEneaney, E. R. Capitanio, A. Richards, F. Byrne, D. Zubiller, S. Gottesman, Al Coster, J. O’Hare, S. Johnson, E. Cichanowicz, B. Hoffman, D. Jones, S. Ingram, C. Guzzo, P. Thomson.

S. Ingram called the meeting to order at 10:03AM. The August minutes were reviewed. E. R. Capitanio made a motion to accept the minutes as corrected. S. Gottesman seconded. None were opposed.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT: C. Guzzo reported that everything is going well. Cynthia asked everyone to think about a program for the Long Island Library Conference, which in 2005 will be one hour long. Cynthia also announced that she will be having a pre-budget meeting in October. She invited anyone interested to attend, and sent around a sheet for people interested to sign-up for notification. Cynthia will arrange for a meeting place, and will e-mail those who would like to attend.

TREASURER’S REPORT: J. O’Hare offered the Treasurer’s report for August 2004. The report showed a fund balance of $46,943.02 as of the end of August 2004. F. Altemose made a motion to accept as written. D. Bucher seconded. None were opposed. S. Ingram asked if the Amazon program offering SCLA a contribution when items are purchased through the SCLA website is still active. Janet didn’t know. Stephen will look into that. K. McCoy asked if the Divisions were issued their reimbursements for their Long Island Library Conference Program. Janet said she received a check from the Conference Committee, but wasn’t clear if she was expected to reimburse divisions that sponsored programs from that amount. Kevin indicated that DASL has not yet received a reimbursement. Janet asked that DASL submit a request for reimbursement to her. Kevin said he would get that to her as soon as possible. J. O’Hare had a bill for $7.27 for postage she spent to send SCLA’s tax forms to be filed. K. McCoy made the motion. R. McEneaney seconded. Al Coster, of Baldessari & Coster LLP offered a detailed presentation explaining the services he and his firm provided for SCLA. The IRS does require non-profit organizations to file if their receipts total $25,000 or more. Mr. Coster explained that, based on what he could see, SCLA needed to file for the 2002 and 2003 tax years. He also mentioned that many non-profit organizations forget to register with New York State. We will be looking into whether or not SCLA is registered, and if we are not, we may need to have an attorney assist us. Mr. Coster then reviewed the Consolidating Financial Statements that were prepared for the 2003 fiscal year. Mr. Coster made a few suggestions that may help us in the future, including the need for descriptions defining the source of income, and using uniform descriptions for all divisions. He reviewed the cost for his services rendered, and reviewed the different levels of services available. Those in attendance had the opportunity to ask questions. Overall, everyone seemed pleased with the assistance we received.

DIVISION REPORTS
DASL: K. McCoy offered the following report. On Friday, September 10th, DASL held their business meeting at Brookhaven Labs. At this meeting they approved nominees for the 2005-2006 DASL board. They also planned upcoming meetings and workshops. They were surprised to hear that Suffolk County Public Library Directors did not have their legislative breakfast in September and were disappointed that SCLA cancelled their breakfast. DASL has started planning for the Legislative Breakfast that it will host in February 28th. DASL members feel strongly that SCLA should hold a breakfast in the Fall, regardless of what the Suffolk Public Library Directors plan. After the business meeting, Mary Peterson gave a presentation about the BNL library and those who attended took a tour of the library. On Friday, October 15th, DASL will co-sponsor a program called ‘Outcomes Assessment for Middle States’ with LILRC’s Continuing Education Committee, tentatively scheduled to be held at SUNY Farmingdale. The workshop will demonstrate successful assessment techniques to meet the Middle States Accreditation. They are still waiting to get final word from Farmingdale for venue. Speakers include Gloria Roberson of Adelphi University, who is a Middle States representative who will discuss the Middle States Guidelines and Information Literacy representing the Middle States point of view. Marsha Spiegelman and Nancy Williamson of Nassau Community College will discuss their experience with Middle States re-accreditation. Elena Cevallos and Ann Grafstein will speak about the Middle State experience at Hofstra University. On Friday, November 12th, DASL will have a business meeting at a location to be announced. On Friday, November 19th, DASL will co-sponsor a trivia night along with NCLA and SLA-LI at Jillian’s Restaurant in Farmingdale. On Friday, December 10th, DASL will have their Annual Luncheon at NYIT, Central Islip Campus. This will be DASL’s Annual Luncheon meeting. New officers will be installed and the luncheon will take place in NYIT’s Culinary Art’s Institute. There will be a short presentation on how to organize a friends group in Academic Libraries.

RASD: S. Gottesman reported the following report: the CARE Committee is co-sponsoring to a trip to the Brooklyn Public Library with the Multicultural Committee on Tuesday, November 16th. They will tour the career center and observe their multilingual services and collections. The price is $42. Boxed lunches will be served and buses will be available at Exits 63 and 49 on the LIE. The committee is also working on an outreach directory, and their next meeting is on September 23rd at the Port Jefferson Library. The Health Concerns Committee has arranged for 2 speakers for their October 27th meeting. Jean Lewis, Head of the Ophthalmology Department at SUNY Stony Brook and Tony DeAngelo of the New York Commission for the Blind will speak. The Long Island History Committee will sponsor a round-table discussion on September 20th at SCLS from 10-12 to discuss LILRC’s Digitization Project. The Long Island Reads Committee has agreed to read three more titles for this year’s selection: Steinbeck’s Travel’s With Charley, DeMille’s Plum Island, and Dee’s Liberty Campaign. OARS next meeting will be held at Central Islip on September 22nd, where they will discuss ideas for their next project. The Programming Committee is leaning towards a Reader’s Advisory project and still need to decide on what genre they will use. Some suggestions made by the board were Science Fiction, African-American, Chic Lit, and Romance resources. The Reader’s Advisory Committee will hold their next meeting on September 23rd at West Islip where they will discuss ‘debut novels’. Their January meeting will cover ‘cozy mysteries’. The Ramblings newsletter should be published by the end of September. All committee meeting dates will be put on the webpage to help avoid conflicts. Regarding the Annual Dinner, the chairperson stated that it was difficult to find 30 people to attend the dinner. She suggested possibly not holding it every year, combining the dinner with that of another division, or holding the dinner at a different time of year. The board agreed that June is a busy time of the year and perhaps the end of February or early March might be a better time. The next RASD is the Annual Breakfast at SCLS on October 27.

CATS: E. R. Capitanio reported that the Blogging Workshop is full with 80 people registered. The Board has also begun working on tentative programs for 2005.

SSD: F. Byrne offered the following report. The Executive Board of the Support Staff Division met on Tuesday, September 14, 2004. Regarding programming, SSD’s Annual General Meeting and Breakfast will be held next Wednesday, September 22nd. So far, 38 people are planning to attend. Fran has met with Chris Penna of NCLA on Wednesday, September 8th to plan their co-sponsored program called ‘East Meets West – an All-Long Island Heads of Circ. Meeting’ to be held on Tuesday, October 26th at the Farmingdale Public Library. SSD believes this will prove to be a productive yet fun program. Dottie Curto, as SSD’s Programs Committee Chairperson, has volunteered to represent the Support Staff Division at the Continuing Education Committee meetings and is planning to attend the meeting on September 28th.
SSD’s slate for 2005 is complete and we are pleased to have candidates for all Board positions.
SSD hopes to develop a newsletter for their division in 2005.

YASD: D. Jones said that YASD hasn’t met and, therefore, has no report. He did remind everyone that YASD’s luncheon is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 23rd at noon. A YASD meeting at Central Islip Public Library from 9:30am - 11:30am will precede the luncheon.

COMMITTEE REPORTS
ARCHIVES: S. Johnson reported that she will be meeting with Virginia Antonucci, a regional archivist, next week. Suzanne also reported that she will need archive boxes, but that she will order the boxes through her library, and submit a bill to be reimbursed.

CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS: No report.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: C. Gray reported that the committee hasn’t met since the last SCLA Board meeting, but the October 1st bus trip is filled. Their next meeting will be on September 28th at 9:30AM in Selden. K. Baudouin sent e-mail reminders to Divisions asking for representatives, and they thanked those Divisions who have already designated a representative to attend their meetings.

ELSA: E. Hayes offered the following report. The committee met at the Commack Branch on Wednesday, September 8th at which time they made the final selection for this year’s recipient. All of the nominees should have received a letter informing them of their nomination and by whom on their staff. Elyse is handling the arrangements of the plaque, Robert Cognato will be working on the certificates for the winner and nominees and Carolyn Hasler will be responsible for the flowers at the dinner meeting. The committee would like to request $150 to cover a bouquet for the winner and boutonnières/corsages for the nominees who attend. The committee intends to submit a budget request for 2005 prior to the October meeting. Joanne Genovese, a librarian from Smithtown, has contacted the committee expressing an interest in chairing the committee for 2005.

FALL DINNER: D. Bucher reported that they have secured the location for the dinner, but have not yet established a theme. The cost will be approximately $50. C. Guzzo suggested that SCLA help fund the dinner by paying for the music, provided the cost does not exceed $600. S. Gottesman made the motion, E. R. Capitanio seconded. None were opposed. Della asked for clarification, asking if SCLA pays for the award winners. That is the case; in the past the ELSA Award winner, the Scholarship Award winner, the Continuing Education Award winner, and the Fall Dinner Committee Chairs typically didn’t pay for their dinners in the past. Someone asked if there is a discount rate offered for the musicians. Della and Marjorie will look into that. Flyers will go out at the end of September with all of the details about the dinner. The RSVPs will be directed to either Della or Marjorie.

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM: K. McCoy reported that Banned book week is September 25th through October 2nd. ALA has a great informational site about banned books at http://www.ala.org/bbooks. NCLA Media Services Division is having a program entitled ‘You Can't Say That!!!! Censorship and the Media’ to be held at Long Island University, CW Post Campus, Hillwood Commons Auditorium on Thursday, September 30 from 2-5 pm. The event will be cosponsored by: Long Island School Media Association of Nassau, Suffolk County Media Association, NCLA Intellectual Freedom Committee. The Huntington Town Board passed a Bill of Rights resolution on September 14th that vows to “affirm and uphold civil rights and civil liberties” and criticizes some provisions of the PATRIOT Act. Suffolk ACLU is now pushing to lobby the Suffolk Count Legislature to push a similar resolution. Kevin feels that we have already passed our own resolution and feels we should pass the ACLU’s resolution as well to present to Suffolk County Legislators. E. R. Capitanio made a motion for SCLA to formally support the Suffolk County Bill of Rights Defense Campaign, D. Bucher seconded. None were opposed. Kevin also reported that an Intellectual Freedom sponsored event is being planned for April 15th, 2005 that will deal with such issues as the PATRIOT Act, copyright, and other issues.

LDA AWARD: No report.

LEGISLATIVE: S. Johsnon reported that there was a LILRC Legislative Meeting on September 15th, but that there weren’t enough people to have a quorum. Governor Pataki vetoed the NYS Budget. Suzanne will forward a letter from Michael Borgess of NYLA, asking for support for the NYS Budget. PLDA’s Legislative Event was moved from October to January. Suzanne mentioned that she recommends 2 buses to be arranged for Library Legislation Day in Albany. F. Altemose said she would arrange for the deposit to be placed immediately. Suzanne asked for a motion for $500 for 2 bus deposits, R. McEneaney made the motion, S. Gottesman seconded. None were opposed. K. McCoy felt that this is the time to talk about a legislative event for next year. Suzanne said she is going to look into the possibility of attending Nassau’s Legislative Breakfast October 1st. H. Biblo proposed re-establishing a Suffolk County Legislative event in Fall 2005. Many people discussed their opinions about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the event, and other suggestions were made as well. Suzanne suggested that the Board wait until January to see how PLDA’s event unfolds, and reminded everyone that PLDA had mentioned the possibility of inviting SCLA’s Executive Board to attend the event.

LISTSERV: K. McCoy reported that after performing a thorough weed of invalid e-mail addresses, SCLA currently has 945 subscribers. For the past week, all AOL e-mail is getting bounced back. I will be working with AOL to troubleshoot the problem.

L.I. LIBRARY CONFERENCE: P. Thomson read the following report. The 2005 Long Island Library Conference Committee has begun to meet to plan the Conference, which will be held on May 4th at the Huntington Town House. After an organizational meeting in August, the full committee met on September 14th at the Farmingdale Library. One Nassau County and one Suffolk County representative has been appointed to each of the standing committees. The Exhibits committee will be sending out letters to vendors who have exhibited in the past and to new contacts as well. All SCLA members are encouraged to submit names of new vendors who may be interested in exhibiting at the 2005 conference. Please contact Debbie Antolini at the Longwood Public Library with contact information. The programs committee will be sending program reservation forms to the division and committee presidents of SCLA and NCLA, as well as other groups who have presented programs in the past. There will be three program sessions of approximately one hour. Each session will consist of six program slots. The 2004 officers of divisions and committees should plan programs. The deadline for reservations is December 31, 2004. Sue Ketcham from LIU Southampton is the Program Chair. If anyone has questions or suggestions about the Conference, they are asked to contact Nancy Sherwood at the Garden City Public Library.

LONG RANGE PLANNING: S. Holden reported that 8 librarians representing various fields of librarianship addressed new MLS students at Palmer School’s Student Orientation on September 10th. As usual, they were very well received. The librarians who spoke were Hedi Beniachan from Suffolk Community College represented academic libraries, Edana Cichanowicz spoke about Reference Services and Multicultural Services in Public Libraries, Lorraine Squires spoke about Young Adult Services, Kris Minschke spoke about Live Librarian, Stephen Ingram spoke about Civil Service, Associations and Professional Organizations, and Scholarships, James Olney spoke about Special Libraries, and Sue Holden spoke about Mentoring. On November 30th, the committee is sponsoring a Civil Service workshop at SCLS. Rona Dressler, Diane Eidelman, and a representative from Suffolk County Civil Service will speak. Sue requested money to purchase new folders for upcoming library school orientation visits at Queens, Palmer, & St. John’s. The cost for 4 boxes is approximately $30. F. Altemose made the motion to purchase 4 boxes (100 folders), S. Gottesman seconded. None were opposed.

MEMBERSHIP: R. McEneaney reported that SCLA currently has 671 members for 2004, including approximately 50 honorary members. Students who register now will be registered as members for 2005. Regina will check – she believes that she has enough applications for current members, but might not have enough for new members. S. Ingram said he would work on the new design for the application. Regina said that she got labels for lists for each Division, and will be sending bills to each Division’s Treasurer. There was some discussion about SCLA’s logo and the need for consistency.

NEWSLETTER: B. Hoffman reported that the current newsletter is in the mail. SCLA did make money from the performer’s advertising section. This issue, $80 was generated. The next newsletter will be December/January/February and can include the award winners from the Fall Dinner if people contact Barbara to reserve space.

NOMINATING: S. Ingram reported that he had a full slate for the 2005 election, but has since had some openings. He asked for any suggestions to be forwarded to him as soon as possible. He will have the complete slate as soon as possible, and will e-mail the board with the slate before it is sent.

PROFESSIONAL CONCERNS: No report.

PUBLIC AWARENESS/PUBLICITY: P. Thomson read the following report. W. Salas has asked St. John’s University faculty to post links to Civil Service examinations to their listserv for MLS students. A program regarding Ethics in Librarianship is scheduled for Monday, October 25th at SCLS. Dr. Patrick McGuire of St. John’s University is scheduled to speak.

SCHOLARSHIP: A. Richards reported that 3 candidates have submitted applications for the Continuing Education Award. The deadline is September 27th. The winner will be notified by October 1st.

STATISTICAL SURVEY: D. Jones reported that the questionnaires are complete and sent to Directors. He has asked that they be returned by October 4th.

SUFFOLK COUNTY JAILS LIBRARY SERVICE: M. Fusco has thanked everyone for their donations, and she encouraged future donations of non-violent paperback books to be sent to either the Riverhead or Yaphank Jails.

WEB PAGE: D. Zubiller reported that the webpage has been moved to the SCLS server and that it is running well. She will be redesigning the page to make the pages consistent.

LIAISONS
CLASC: P. Thomson read the following report. Harriet-Jane Costello of Patchogue-Medford Library is the new President of CLASC.

EASTERN SUFFOLK BOCES: No report.

LILRC: H. Biblo reported that the ballot for LILRC’s election has been approved. There are 7 spots, and 5 of those elected will be new members. The NCLA Legislative Breakfast will be held on October 1. LILRC’s Annual Conference will be November 4th and 5th. LILRC’s Annual Meeting is scheduled for November 18th. Herb reported that the Digitzation Task Force is being phased out and a User Council Group is being phased in with current users.

LVA-SC: No report.

NCLA: No report. (NCLA does not meet in July or August)

PLDA: No report.

SCLS: No report.

SLA: No report.

MEMBERS-AT-LARGE: F. Altemose and E. Cichanowicz’s terms expire at the end of 2005. E. Cichanowicz submitted an additional $487 from the Writers on the Vine fundraiser. Edana is also coordinating a trip to Brooklyn and asked for a motion to be permitted to spend no more than $650 for a bus for the trip. S. Gottesman made the motion, F. Altemose seconded. None were opposed.

OLD BUSINESS: LILRC has requested that SCLA sponsor part of their Annual Conference. The vote was tabled until the next meeting, to see if SCLA contributed in the past. Herb did not think that SCLA sponsored any part of their conference in the past.

NEW BUSINESS: It was suggested that J. Nichols be offered a lifetime membership in SCLA to recognize his retirement from SCLA. S. Johnson made the motion. E. Cichanowicz seconded. None were opposed. It was also suggested that SCLA pay for Jerry’s dinner at the SCLA Fall Dinner.

S. Ingram adjourned the meeting at 12:15PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Patricia Thomson