Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting

Friday, February 18, 2005

Location: SCLS Blue Room

Present: S. Gottesman, S. Ingram, J. O’Hare, R. Capitanio, D. Eidelman, R. McEneaney, M. Fusco, V. Antonucci, T. Gutmann, L. Squires, K. Molloy, B. Massis, M. Bollerman, C. Gray, E. Chicanowicz, H. Costello, R. Dressler, F. Altemose, P. Bornstein, M. Nicolassi, V. Rodgers, S. Johnson, B. Hoffman.

S. Gottesman called the meeting to order at 10:10AM.  The January minutes were reviewed and corrected.  R.McEneaney made a motion to accept the minutes as written. F. Altemose seconded.  None were opposed. 

TREASURER’S REPORT :  J. O’Hare offered the Treasurer’s report for January 2005.  The report showed a fund balance of  $68,849.18 as of the end of January 2005. Janet presented the following bills to be reimbursed: $950 to the LILC for the reimbursement of a vendor (Whitcomb Associates) who cancelled; $100 to NYLA for the $50 per bus fee imposed by the Albany Police Dept. for security for Library Legislation Day; $79.18 to Longwood Public Library for the postage for mailing the Legislation Day flyers; $50 to SCLS for the printing of the same; and $25.95 to Carol Gray for reimbursement for refreshments for the Continuing Education program, Displays on a Dime. R. Dressler made a motion to accept all bills and the Treasurer’s report as presented, P. Bornstein seconded. None were opposed.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT: S. Ingram reported on the executive session held prior to the meeting regarding the possibility of sponsoring a Legislative Breakfast. Both LILRC and PLDA have inquired about possibly co-sponsoring such an event. Discussion ensued regarding the political, economic and manpower issues. Stephen stated his feeling that SCLA is the ideal institution to represent Suffolk County in this area. Tentative plans were made to move forward once the feedback to the DASL event and the individual zone luncheons is received. Stephen then turned his attention to the Long Island Library Conference, for which plans are moving ahead smoothly. The Association should be very busy over the next few months both with the LILC and the other events that are planned.

DIVISION REPORTS

DASL : V. Antonucci offered the following report. There is no financial report as the Division has not had a meeting since the last Board meeting. The LILC program will be “With a little help from Friends” about creating a effective Friends group for the library. They are currently looking for a speaker to represent the public library sector. The Legislative Breakfast will be held on 2/25 at the Wang Center at SUNY Stony Brook. Chris Filstrup will do a presentation for the legislators and Herb Biblo will speak briefly on the ramifications of the newly created New York Office of Cultural Education. This department would remove responsibility for libraries from the State Education Department beginning October 1. A request was made for funds to help pay for refreshments. Said funds have been previously approved.

RASD: M. Nicolazzi offered the following report. Several of our committees are reviewing their goals and strategy for the upcoming year. The CARE Committee’s January meeting was cancelled. The next meeting is scheduled for February 17 at Mastics. ELECTRONIC RESOURCES: Bruce Silverstein reported that the committee had plans to meet in late March or early April at Patchogue-Medford. Gary Lutz, a part-timer at Patchogue, is interested in leading meetings. A list of ideas was drawn up for possible meeting topics, including local community databases, VRC additions, and comparisons of databases in various subject categories. At the first meeting, participants will have a chance to discuss topics for future meeting. HEALTH CONCERNS: The last meeting was held on January 25 at Patchogue-Medford. 14 people attended. The topic for the coming year will be obesity. Committee members have been assigned various sections of the bibliography to compile. The committee will try to meet again in June. The Annual Meeting will be held on October 19 at SCLS. HISTORIAN: No report. LONG ISLAND HISTORY: No report. LONG ISLAND READS: Deborah Cunningham and Elizabeth Olesh gave a presentation at Nassau Library System on the One Community/One Book program idea and on the book, Travels with Charley. The new website is http://www.longislandreads.org/. Book discussion workshop for Travels with Charley was held on 2/15. Deborah Cunningham and Elizabeth traveled to Sag Harbor to meet with David Lee, who knew John Steinbeck, and are hoping to arrange a program in Sag Harbor in April. MEDIA: The committee will be doing a March 21 program at SCLS on online e-books and audio books. Flyers have been sent to all the libraries. MULTICULTURAL: This committee is still organizing its structure and activities. The last meeting was held on January 11 at South Huntington. A November trip to the Brooklyn Public Library was a great success. Thanks to Anne Marie Tognella for arranging it. The next committee meeting will be held at Brentwood on April 12. The committee is also arranging a September program at SCLS, with a panel discussion on multicultural issues and how they impact service, such as differing perceptions of time and personal space. OARS: Their upcoming program for the Long Island Library Conference was discussed. Barbara Hoffman will be speaking on multi-generational oral and written stories(Your Story Begins at Home). Future meeting topics and programs were also discussed. The next meeting will be held on February 16 at Connetquot. READER’S ADVISORY: The committee met on January 20 at Comsewogue. Cozy mysteries were discussed. Bruce Silverstein provided background for the next topic of alternative history. Additional work is begin done on the Long Island Fiction bibliography. It was decided that the bibliography should be made available both online and in print. The next meeting will be held on April 21 at Half Hollow Hills to discuss alternative history novels. RAMBLINGS : Next issue is due out in March.

CATS: T. Gutmann offered the following report. On February 1, 2005 the CATS board met at SCLS. We discussed some of our upcoming programs. On March 29, 10:00 a.m., at SCLS, Sue Ketcham will present a program on “Dewey vs. LC” cataloging. Tom Cohn’s AACR2 Study Group will meet for the first time on March 1. In June, CATS will sponsor a two-part workshop on assisting patrons with job search and resume creation. The program is hands-on and will be presented by Ceil Hearn of Sharper Training Solutions. We discussed some ideas for upcoming programs which included an Open Forum on media repair and issues related to electronic content such as MP3 files.

SSD: Vincent Rodgers offered the following report. The Support Staff Division met on February 9, 2005. Most of the meeting was spent discussing the Long Island Library Conference. We are looking forward to the LILC and the program we are co-sponsoring with NCLA – Team Spirit is Essential. We are finalizing plans for our Annual Roundtable Discussion program to be held in late March. The Support Staff division currently has 133 members. We hope to attract new members through upcoming programs and events.

YASD: L. Squires offered the following report. The division recently held their annual joint meeting with Nassau at Jericho library. The 1 st annual Fran Romer memorial Literature Conference will be held on April 15 th. The division hopes that this will become an annual self-sustaining event.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

ARCHIVES: S. Johnson offered the following report. Lots of materials is being received. Suzanne and V. Antonucci visited the storage area and Ginny made some suggestions on storing the materials. A request will be made for more space from SCLS.

CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS: S. Ingram reported on the preliminary investigation into extending the terms of office. NCLA has one year terms for all but the Treasurer who serves a two year term. An amendment to the by-laws will be proposed that we should do the same. Also, it was proposed that we amend the by-laws to designate the responsibility of appointments to the Long Island Library Conference Committee and bring the conference back under the auspices of the associations.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: C. Gray submitted the following report. The committee has not met since the last board meeting. We did however have a successful workshop on February3rd. Displays on a Dime: Quick, Collaborative and Economical Approaches to Library Outreach. Approximately 50 people were in attendance. Our sincere thanks go the librarians of Dowling College who put together this interactive program. They were Michael Aloi, Chris Kretz, Lisa Esposito, Joyce Gotsch and Diane Holliday who is an active member of our committee. Digital photos were forwarded to Barbara Hoffman for the newsletter. Our next meeting will be held at the Middle Country Public Library at Selden on Tuesday, March 8 at 9:45am. It is requested that if your committee is going to send someone to our meetings that you forward their e-mail address to Karen Baudouin at kebaudou@suffolk.lib.ny.us The agenda for that meeting will be: The Long Island Library Conference workshop that we are sponsoring, Authors, Books and the Journeys They Have Taken Us On, with Larry Davidson. Third annual library bus trip. Fall programs

ELSA: No Report.

FALL DINNER: M. Fusco said she would help but did not wish to chair the committee. A discussion ensued on why we have been unable to attract more members to the dinner. This will be explored further once a chair has been appointed. It was suggested that we try to choose a sight that is centrally located for all of Suffolk.

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM: K. McCoy submitted the following report. The committee met on February 11 th and continued to plan for the Spring Intellectual Freedom Conference. We have the program finished and conference announcements will go out shortly. We would like to offer this conference for free. DASL is picking up the cost of the refreshments. The NCLA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee is helping with the advertising. We would like to use the Intellectual freedom budget and some SCLA money to cover the travel cost and the honorarium for the speakers. The total cost should come to approximately $750. Title of the Conference: "It Couldn't Happen Here, Could It?: Intellectual Freedom Battles on Long Island." Date & Time: Friday, April 15th 9am-1pm Location - Suffolk Community College - Selden - Islip Building, Room 115

Speakers: Don Wilson - First hand account of the Pico v. Island Trees book banning case; Don Gilzingher - Wicked Times in Oakdale - Aaron Kramer, Long Island's Blacklisted poet ; Jared Feuer - The Patriot Act & the Suffolk County Bill of Rights Campaign; and Abby Gundrum - The Feds, Libraries and the Patriot Act. Our committee is also co-sponsoring a program with NCLA’s Intellectual Freedom committee at the Long Island Library conference. The program will focus on Media consolidation. “Shattering glass”, a book that was banned at a high school library has been returned to the library. The teacher was also given permission to use the book in her class. Unfortunately, there is another school district that has taken the book “Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging” out of their middle school library. We will have more details at the next meeting. The Suffolk Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union is having their first Annual Awards Banquet on March 19th from 12pm-3pm at the Three Village Inn in Stony Brook. This year's honorees are David Kilmnick, Founder/Director of the Long Island Gay & Lesbian Youth; Charlotte Sky & Vic Skolnick, Founders/Directors of the Cinema Arts Center and Catherine Tambini, Director of the film Farmingville. If you are interested in going please contact me at mccoykj@sunysuffolk.edu. Our next meeting is on March 11, 9:30am at Suffolk Community College.

 

LDA AWARD: P. Bornstein reported that the 2005 LDA Award brochure was updated by R. Dressler. The brochure now is at the SCLS print shop where it will be printed shortly. (2500 copies) Address labels will be needed for all SCLA members and reimbursement will be needed for postage (approx. $70) at the March meeting. Discussion ensued regarding how to get more candidates nominated.

 

LEGISLATIVE: S. Johnson reported that the two buses for Lobby Day in Albany (March 15) will make pick ups at SCLS as well as Exits 58 and 49. The flyer has been printed and mailed, put on the web page, distributed via SCLS delivery to directors, and given to CLASC and PLDA. A newsletter article will highlight the trip. She will attend the next LILRC Legislative Committee meeting on March 1. A request was made that we purchase “Libraries Matter” bracelets for the attendees, as well as for the LILC. B. Massis reported that the bracelets, selling for $150 for 100, have sold out. We may not get them in time for the trip. F. Altemose offered to call several vendors to inquire about the cost to have some made up. A request was made for funds, not to exceed $300, to purchase said bracelets. P. Bornstein made the motion, F. Altemose seconded. None were opposed.

 

LISTSERV:  K. McCoy reported that there are currently 966 subscribers. We will most likely go over the 1,000 mark in a couple of months!

 

L.I. LIBRARY CONFERENCE: R. Dressler reported that the last meeting was held at No. Bellmore Library, on February 14. We have 4 positions for Concierge. It was agreed that the students will pay for their own lunch, but we will waive the registration fee. The Town House now has wireless access available so we will have to determine how to utilize it with the vendors. More next meeting. We have 38 vendors with 44 tables. They are requesting 50 lunches. The Job Table will ask LILRC/Herb Biblo if we can post jobs on the LILRC site. Mike Lupica has agreed to be our guest speaker at a cost of $2500. To be discussed is his travel arrangements. It was suggested and agreed upon that handouts will be posted on the website in Word after the conference. We want to publicize the website as much as possible and utilizeit for information, registration, program announcements, changes, etc. Please make sure that postcards arrive at your library. They were sent out this week. The registration form is on the website ready to be downloaded. Confirmation letters to all program arrangers will be sent out this week. Afterwards, they will be published on the website. Lunch tickets are being printed up in 2 different colors. It was decided that the committee and vendors will be seated upstairs along with the winners of awards. Still to be determined are the other 100 or so people who can be seated upstairs.

 

LONG RANGE PLANNING: S. Holden submitted the following report. On January 21 st, Joann Carhart, Susan Holden, Will Salas, and James Olney spoke to incoming MLS students at the Palmer school. The presentation to about 50 new students was very successful. Also submitted was a letter from Acting Dean Mary Westermann-Cicio thanking the committee.

MEMBERSHIP: R. McEneaney reported that SCLA currently has 739 members for 2004, 429 have renewed for 2005. Reminders will go out at the beginning of March to those who have not renewed. Division and committee lists were distributed. Regina said she needed to purchase labels and would be sending out the membership cards.

 

NEWSLETTER: B. Hoffman reported that she is working on the current issue and hopes to have it out by March 1 st. She still needs reports from the Divisions and requested articles from the following: K. McCoy on intellectural freedom and the 1000 th Listserv subscriber (who will receive a free 1 year’s membership to SCLA); S. Johnson on NY Political Action Committee; and on Long Island Reads (she will e-mail D. Cunningham). Barbara will be retiring in June and SCLA will either need to replace her or divide the writing tasks and e-mail them to her.

NOMINATING: No report.

PROFESSIONAL CONCERNS: No report.

PUBLIC AWARENESS/PUBLICITY: No report.

SCHOLARSHIP: No report.

STATISTICAL SURVEY: No report.

SUFFOLK COUNTY JAILS LIBRARY SERVICE: M. Fusco requested that paperback, non-violent books be donated to the Yaphank or Riverhead Jails. Please send them through the SCLS system bag and make them either Yaphank or Riverhead. Thank you for all donations.

WEB PAGE: S. Ingram reported that the new page is up and running with A. Tiffany’s help. An Events Calendar will be added with both old and new meetings. He is planning to work on both the YASD and SSD pages.

LIAISONS

CLASC: Harriet Costello sadly reported the death of Diane Andresen from Sachem’s children’s department. The department will forward messages of condolence to the family. On a lighter note, the next program being planned is for March 31 at Bay Shore-Brightwaters Library on “Civil Service Forms…and Other Things that go Bump in the Night.” Linda Clark will discuss filling out the forms, etc. Space is limited and CLASC members will be given priority. The Annual Dinner and General Membership meeting is planned for April 12 at Three Village Inn in Stony Brook. The guest author/speaker will be Sarah Weeks, the author of So B It and many other books. Kate and Jim McMullan, who are the authors of many popular books, will be the guest speakers at the Long Island Library conference, May 4. They wrote the I Stink and I’m Mighty picture books. The Library Practices committee is preparing a brochure of Places to go Free or Almost Free on Long Island, which is intended for families. Finally, we are surveying our membership to develop a list of favorite books of children’s librarians in many categories, such as board, picture, easy reader, etc.

 

EASTERN SUFFOLK BOCES: No report.

 

LILRC: V. Antonucci expressed LILRC’s support of an SCLA legislative breakfast. The 3 rd symposium on Digitization will be held shortly. This program demonstrates how to get started and how to sustain electronic records. The three digitization training workshops are coming up as is a training workshop on the software used for digitization. A program on caring for rare books and several DHP programs are also in the works.

 

LVA-SC: No report.

 

NCLA: No report. The Association is meeting concurrently with SCLA.

 

PLDA: M. Bollerman reported he is happy to hear that SCLA is considering a legislative event. PLDA would like to thank SCLA for the great job it is doing and wants the members to know that the directors have taken notice of all their hard work.

SCLS: B. Massis reported that he has visited 30 of the public libraries in the county and the system is investigating several initiatives including: hiring a full-time grant writer for the county. Inspired by D. Eidelman’s LSDA grants, the system is expanding continuing education by bringing programs out to the libraries. A workshop on customer service will be held in a library in each of the 5 zones. The system has purchased digital recording equipment and is looking into streaming continuing education events, enabling those who cannot attend to view the program from their desktop computers. Patron Placed Holds has taken off and it was necessary to purchase a 4 th truck, create a 4 th route and hire another driver for the deliveries. It is expected that 48-50 of the 56 county libraries will be members of PALS by the end of the year.

 

SLA: The division is planning a workshop on Excel for February 25 at the Palmer School.

 

MEMBERS-AT-LARGE: F. Altemose will contact vendors regarding the “Libraries Matter” bracelets and she is planning on ordering the LI Ducks tickets as soon as they post the Fireworks night. E. Chicanowicz requested an expenditure of up to $600 of previously approved funds for the tickets to Writers on the Vine. She would be willing to work on the Legislative Breakfast if someone would take over Writers on the Vine. L. Squires will to Edana to find out what’s involved.

 

OLD BUSINESS: There was a brief discussion on giveaways for the Conference. In addition to the bracelets, YASD will be doing their candy bar fundraiser and CATS still has jar openers. Steven asked that we consider manning the SCLA table during the conference when planning our LILC schedules.

 

NEW BUSINESS: R. McEneaney requested that SCLA purchase LDA directories for Board members as had been done in the past. We would need about 20, but the retail is $75. We had previously received at cost. Steven will look into this.

 

Due to conflicts with programs, the April meeting will be held on April 22 in the auditorium at SCLS.

 

S. Gottesman adjourned the meeting at 11:35AM.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Renee Capitanio