SCLA Minutes

Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting

Friday, March 18, 2005

SCLS Blue Room

IN ATTENDANCE: Fran Altemose, Herb Biblo, Matthew Bollerman, Paula Bornstein, Renee Capitanio, Harriet Costello, Rona Dressler, Diane Eidelman, Susan Gottesman, Carol Gray, Ted Gutmann, Stephen Ingram, Dave Jones, Bruce Massis, Regina McEneaney, Maureen Nicolazzi, Janet O’Hare, Angela Richards, Lorraine Squires.

CALL TO ORDER: Susan Gottesman called the meeting to order at 10:10 a.m. The February 2005 Minutes were reviewed and corrected. Rona Dressler made a motion to approve the minutes as corrected, seconded by Angela Richards. None were opposed.

TREASURER’S REPORT : Janet O’Hare offered the Treasurer’s report for February 2005. The report showed a fund balance of $80,311.05. Most of the income for the month was due to the Long Island Library Conference. We also received $174.00 for the Scholarship Fund and $28.00 for Intellectual Freedom. Janet proposed that we place some of our funds into an interest bearing CD to return a higher yield. A motion was made to place 50% of the fund balance into a 6 month CD. Lorraine Squires made a motion to approve, seconded by Diane Eidelman. None were opposed. The following expenditures were submitted for approval:

$409.09 - Suzanne Johnson for Library Legislation Day bus trip, various expenses for food and bus driver tip

$26.90 – Megan Sala-James – card stock for raffle tickets

$817.50 – SCLS – printing costs for Newsletter and LDA brochure

$81.40 – Regina McEneaney – Postage for Membership renewals

$133.20 – Patchogue- Medford Library – Postage for Newsletter

$52.30 – Nancy Sherwood – Postage for mailing postcards

$34.15 – Art Friedman – Postage for Save the Date postcards

$335.19 – Debbie Antolini – Various mailing supplies, postage, door prizes

$74.00 – Paula Bornstein – Postage for LDA brochures

Diane Eidelman made motion to approve the expenditures; Fran Altemose seconded. No opposed.

Janet requested that Divisions remember to submit their financial reports with bank statements attached. Reimbursement forms should also have receipts attached.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT : Stephen Ingram reminded everyone of the change of date for the April meeting. We will meet on Friday, April 22 in the auditorium since there are 3 excellent programs being offered on April 15. In June we will need to look at nominations for the empty spots on the LILC Committee for next year, as well as for the Continuing Education Committee and Newsletter editor. He will speak to Cindy Guzzo about possibly chairing the fall dinner. He is also arranging to reprint the membership cards and will design a generic SCLA business card for the board to use.

Division Reports

DASL : Regina McEneaney offered the following. Since DASL had to cancel the Legislative Breakfast due to inclement weather, the division would like to combine with SCLA for a fall legislative breakfast. They have an excellent program worked up that could be adapted to include information on public libraries. Stephen stated that we will wait until after the LILC to being planning. There will be a Needs Assessment coming out in July for public libraries and we should incorporate that into the program. The Intellectual Freedom program is set for April 15 and the LILC program will feature the Friends group from Stony Brook University as well as Sue McCormick who was responsible for the startup of the Friends group in Sayville.

R ASD : Maureen Nicolazzi reported. Our last meeting was held at West Islip Public Library on March 8. Treasurer’s report: the cash balance is $3297.44. We reviewed a list of several restaurants for our dinner. We are looking for a central location with a September date. Our next meeting will be April 5 at Central Islip Library. Committee Reports: CARE – Linda Knel sent a report on their activities. Members are working on entries for their Career Services Directory, which they hope to have ready for the LILC. One free copy of the directory will be sent to all Suffolk public libraries with additional copies available for purchase. The next meeting is April 7 at Connetquot Library. Electronic Resources – Gary Lutz, co-chair with Bruce Silverstein reported that their first meeting is March 28 at Patchogue. They are hoping to have guest speakers and roundtable discussions following. The outcomes would be divided into sections for bibliographic instruction and the results would be posted on their website. Gary would like to see the committee have a listserv as well and future input into the VRC. Health Concerns – The committee is busy working on their obesity project. Their next meeting is tentatively scheduled for June. Long Island History – no report. Long Island Reads – Deborah Cunningham sent a report for their latest plans. LI Reads special event during National Library Week will be held on Tuesday, April 12. It will feature speakers, possible roundtable discussion and a short video on John Steinbeck. Nassau Community College will host the event plus a luncheon. Astoria Federal has designed a poster and bookmark. Media – There will be a workshop on e-books and audio books. The speakers will be representatives from Overdrive and Recorded Books. It is March 21 at 10 a.m. The next meeting will be April 1 at Comsewogue. Multicultural Services – no report. OARS – Cindy Miller reported the committee is meeting on March 16 at Sachem. They are finalizing their conference program with Barbara Hoffman and working on a flyer and future speakers. LILC – Our Readers’ Advisory program is scheduled for the 8 a.m. time slot at the conference. We are booking accommodations for one of our speakers, Ms. Reisner to guarantee her arrival. She lives in New Jersey. We are currently working on our giveaways, raffle and table plans for the conference. Readers’ Advisory – Grace O’Connor reported the committee has completed its annotations for Cozy Mysteries. It will be posted on the RASD website. They are still working on Fiction in a Long Island Setting. Ramblings – Rona Dressler should be printing the latest version shortly.

CATS : Ted Gutmann reported. March 7, 2005 the CATS board met at SCLS. Our upcoming program “ Dewey or Don't We? -- LC See, Let's See!” ( March 29, 2005) had very few registrations initially. We had considered canceling it due to lack of interest. However, as of this week, registrations have picked up and the program will go ahead as scheduled. We discussed some plans for the upcoming Long Island Library Conference, including giveaway items and a gift basket that we will raffle off.

SSD : Susan Siegel submitted the following report. Due to the inclement weather the Support Staff Division was unable to hold its regularly scheduled meeting. In its place a committee meeting was held to finalize the details of the upcoming roundtable meeting as well as discussing LILC issues. Our Annual Roundtable Discussion will be held on Thursday March 31 st at the Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library. We currently have about 40 people registered for this event. The Support Staff division currently has 133 members. The SSD thanks Stephen Ingram for his assistance with the website while we undergo some changes with its management. Your patience and cooperation has been truly appreciated.

YASD : Lorraine Squires reported that the flyers for the Fran Romer Conference have gone out. She thanked the librarians at Northport for their input and support. The Annual Candy Bar sale has started. The bars are $1.00 each and are available on their website and at the LILC. They are hoping to redo their membership flyer - Why Join YASD? It was suggested that the flyer also be put on their website. The First Annual Fran Romer Literature Conference will be held on April 15 at Middle Country Library.

 

Committee Reports

ARCHIVES : No report.

CONSTITUTION & BY-LAWS : No report.

CONTINUING EDUCATION : Carol Gray reported. The committee met at the Middle Country Public Library-Selden. In attendance were Carol Gray, Karen Baudouin, Diane Holliday and Dorothy Curto. We reviewed the workshop held on February 3 rd, Displays on a Dime: Quick,Collaborative and Economical Approaches to Library Outreach. Over 50 people were in attendance. We discussed the workshop, Authors,Books and the Journeys They Have Taken Us On, which the Continuing Education Committee is sponsoring at the Long Island Library Conference. The website for the LILC brochure is to be forwarded to Larry Davidson, our guest speaker. Plans for the third annual bus trip to Manhattan were brought up. It was decided that we should aim for Friday, September 30 th. The bus details would be handled by Karen Baudouin. Diane Holliday would look into visiting the Hispanic Society and Carol Gray would check into visiting the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. We thought these would be 2 interesting places to visit in light of the changing cultural diversity on Long Island. Larry Davidson expressed interest in putting together a panel discussion with a group of writers who are originally from Long Island or whose books take place predominantly on Long Island. The idea of a literary conference sounds enticing. However, it was felt that an undertaking such as this necessitates a larger and more involved membership as well as commitments from other divisions. This is compounded by the fact that both co-chairs will be stepping down soon. There is a need for new leadership for the committee as Carol Gray will be retiring in July and Karen Baudouin will be more actively involved in RASD. Diane suggested that we might want to use Larry Davidson for the Long Island Reads program next year. Nassau is doing a multi-disciplinary program this year and the LI Reads committee could do something similar at SUNY Stony Brook next year. Stephen stated that he does have some ideas on replacements for Carol and Karen. Carol stated that no one on the existing committee wants to chair and it will be necessary to get more membership involvement if we would like to step up to a larger conference. Regina stated that SCC has a writer’s series of college professors who have published and that would be an excellent source for an all-day conference. The next meeting will be held at the Middle Country Public Library-Selden on Tuesday, May 17 at 9:45 am.

ELSA : Joanne Genovese submitted the following report. We have a new committee member to welcome this year, Min Liu from LILRC. The 2005 ELSA brochure and flyer are updated and are being dropped off for printing. I want to thank Stephen Ingram for all his help, we couldn’t have been ready without him.

FALL DINNER : No report.

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM : Kevin McCoy sent the following report. W e already have twenty people registered for the conference; the intellectual freedom web site is almost complete (I will move it to the SCLA server and announce it sometime next week); we are still looking the issue of advocacy groups using library meeting rooms and bulletin boards.

LDA AWARD : Paula Bornstein reported that 2500 brochures advertising the 2005 LDA Award were received from the SCLS print shop. 1250 brochures went to Ken Bellafiore, the LDA Award co-chairperson from NCLA. Brochures were sent to all SCLA members via the SCLS system bags and the mail. Members were asked to return all nominee applications/packets by April 1, 2005. Matthew Bollerman said he will talk to PLDA about pushing for nominations. Rona Dressler will send the brochure to Stephen to put up on the website.

LEGISLATIVE : Stephen Ingram reported on the success of the bus trip. We booked 2 buses and filled only one. We will need to make our voice louder next year. Angela Richards suggested perhaps we should lobby the directors to allow more staff to go. Herb Biblo reported that, on the whole, the trip was very upbeat for the first time in years, even though the numbers were down and perhaps we need to educate the directors to send more staff.

LISTSERV : Kevin McCoy sent the following report. We are slowly moving up to the 1000 mark. We currently have 971 subscribers.

L.I. LIBRARY CONFERENCE : R. Dressler reported. Committee met on March 16 at Garden City Library. It was requested that each committee put together a timeline and a job description to pass along to succeeding chairs. We will compile a list of hotels in the area. So far, we have 4 student volunteers to act as concierges. They will have their registration waived and C.W.Post will pay for their lunch. Design Audiovisual will do all the AV equipment. We will not be using any of the Huntington Town House material. We’ve also requested 12 walkie/talkies for the concierges and other volunteers. There will be a concierge on each level. Also, one will be at the Main Desk (registration) to check in the speakers and be a liaison between arrangers and speakers. There is a cost of $150 for a wireless connection at the Town House. So far, we have 47 vendors with 63 tables. 3 have asked for a wireless connection. 86 vendor lunches and 4 ads for our program. We’ve made up a tentative floor plan depending on how many vendor tables are sold. A bookmark (?) might be created with a listing of websites and listservs for jobs. There will also be a listing of the library schools in the area, Civil Service applications, and a separate listing of all the test numbers and what they are for Nassau and Suffolk Civil service. A confirmation letter was sent to Mike Lupica. B&T will provide us w/100 copies of each of his latest 2 books. As a giveaway we will have black totes with a lime green logo. We’re also purchasing Mood pens. Raffles will be printed up in a different color with the attendees name and library. So far, we have 4 registrations from Nassau and 1 from Suffolk. Lunch tickets will also be lime green. Tags, folders and seals should run approximately $1000. The dais will consist of the Chair and Treasurer of LILC, Mike Lupica and the Program chair, the 2 Presidents of the Associations, Art Friedman and the presenter of the BEST award. Our next meeting will be at the Huntington Townhouse on April 18 at 1PM. Wrap meeting on June 15 at PML.

LONG RANGE PLANNING : No Report.

MEMBERSHIP : Regina McEneaney submitted the following report: There are 757 active members of which 515 members have renewed for 2005. Renewals will be sent out this weekend. A new membership application will have to be printed. She has enough for the renewals but not for the Spring Open Houses. The redesigned application should be ready within the month and a printing run of 3000 should last 2 years. Stephen will email the redesigned application to the board members for proofing. Regina requested that all Division Boards should check the membership status of their board members.

NEWSLETTER : No Report

NOMINATING : Stephen Ingram reported that discussions are underway to change the by-laws to allow for a two year term for the treasurer.

PROFESSIONAL CONCERNS : No Report

PUBLIC AWARENESS/RELATIONS : William Salas sent the following report. PR Committee membership is up from 2 members to 7. We hope with our increased numbers that we will be able to take more action in increasing SCLA membership and promoting SCLA events. Currently Pub Relations members are working with Angela Richards of the SCLA Scholarship Committee to help secure raffle prizes for the scholarship. Also, the PR Committee is trying to arrange for an SCLA visit to the Oakdale campus of St.John’s University. I hope to arrange the first Public Relations Committee meeting soon where we will discuss the promotion of SCLA events.

SCHOLARSHIP : Angela Richards reported. Last month flyers were sent to Suffolk County libraries and library schools for posting announcing the 2005 Scholarship. As a result, six requests for 2005 Scholarship applications from potential candidates were mailed during the past three weeks. Personal e-mails were sent to students members of SCLA announcing the scholarship. Received a box of 50 "Goodwill" books from BWI as a donation supporting the scholarship. The books are a mixture of juvenile, teen and adult titles and will be given out free to members who arrive (first come, first served) at the Annual Dinner. Letters requesting donations were sent to organizations such as the Tilles Center, Broadway on Main, Smithtown Center for the Performing Arts and Flowers by Fred. The Scholarship committee is also working on soliciting donations for the raffle. It was suggested that Baker & Taylor, Midwest and III all be contacted.

STATISTICAL SURVEY : Dave Jones reported that the survey is going to the printer today.

SUFFOLK COUNTY JAILS LIBRARY SERVICE : No Report

WEB PAGE : Stephen Ingram reported that he has been updating the page and is looking for a good calendar program to use. If anyone has anything to be posted it should be sent to Stephen.

Liaisons

CLASC: Harriet-Jane Costello reported. CLASC will participate with SCLA in a legislative event. Dianne Roberts and Kim Giery, of Longwood, will be volunteers. We are anxiously awaiting our annual dinner event and the Long Island Library Conference. Both feature children’s authors as speakers – Sarah Weeks will speak at our dinner at the Three Village Inn. Kat and Jim McMullan will speak at the Conference. Jen Marin from South Country has been working on our favorite children’s books lists. Participation from members is featured. Also, a brochure of places to go on Long Island with children is being prepared. We are planning a walking tour of the Greenwich Village area of NYC on September 14, lead by Leonard Marcus, a children’s book author, historian and critic. It will feature homes of children’s authors and places of interest to children’s literature. When questioned about their literature conference, Harriet stated that their very successful conference which is held every other year was last October. The most difficult task is to find a suitable venue; it is a lot of work but has great benefits.

E. S. BOCES: No Report

LILRC : Herb Biblo reported. The LILRC Conference on Libraries in the Future will have focus on “The Changing Demographic in Libraries” and will be held on October 20 and 21. The program is almost complete and Herb expressed a desire to see the faces of some board members at this leadership conference. Virginia Antonucci has arranged addition OCLC digitization workshops in April with others to follow. Input creeps along as time allows. LILRC is teaming with Firstsearch to create a regional union catalog. The OCLC program has a broader base and it is hoped that it will help to integrate the various libraries’ catalogs. It also allows for a dynamic serials list and should up and running on April 1. Herb suggested that members should contact Bob Barra, a Nassau County representative, who is the only LI member on the committee which determines Library Aid. There have been pledges to restore the 5% - and a campaign is under way to have the additional funds based on the 2000 census.

LVA-SC  : No Report

NCLA : Rona Dressler presented the following report. Tickets will be on sale for the Ducks game beginning April 30. Academic and Special Libraries will hold a full-day conference on May 13. Arranging for speakers. Children’s Services will sponsor a literary walk in NYC sometime in May. Beginning to plan the March 2006 Talent Showcase. On March 8, had a workshop with the speaker dressed up as Emma Goldman talking about women’s rights. On March 8, Computers & technology had a workshop on Printing Solutions for Libraries – discussing networking, types of printers, software management programs for printing…In mid-April, there will be a workshop entitled “Utilizing Technology for disabled patrons”. Continuing Ed is working on a workshop for September 22 with Walter Matthews, called, Being Excellent, Being Perfect. On March 2, the information was sent to all directors by the Intellectual freedom Committee for their essay contest, What Does Freedom to Read mean to me? One essay has already been submitted. 46 people have signed up so far for Legislation day. NCLA currently has 696 members with the Clerical Division moving up quickly with 157 members. The first management Class has graduated from NCLA’s Management Courses. On April 21, there will be Hempstead career fair. The Annual Dinner will be at Manor East. NLS sponsored a program, Marketing Databases by the Ivy Group on March 10. It was announced that the Regional catalog, hosted by OCLC, only contains 200,000 records, far fewer than the libraries own, because they only started entering the records several years ago. ALIS has all the records. NYLA is redeveloping the Vitality Fund Committee. The conference this year will be in Buffalo. Encourage everyone to go to Albany.

PLDA : Matthew Bollerman reported that it was felt that the libraries’ message has been heard in Albany and thanked the membership for its support.

SCLS : Bruce Massis thanked the association for a trip which went well and he felt the message was heard. Meetings were positive, sometimes with the legislators, sometimes with aides. He suggested that we should be proactive and is sending thank you letters. We should keep up the calls and e-mails for next week’s vote. The legislature wants to wrap up the budget by 4/1, possible by 4/15. This is a real team effort. System has had its second meeting with North Fork Bank regarding their committing to being the lead funder for a digitization project. This 4 year grant would digitize 28 historical newspapers and system would be seeking additional funders as well. The hope is that the digitization would be done at SCLS and housed on their servers. They are also talking to SUNY-Stony Brook about a partnership. The advertisement for a full-time grant writer to bring additional funding for programs and services has produced several fine candidates. Interviews will begin in 2 weeks with the intention to have the person on board by May 1.

SLA : James Olney sent the following report: Save the Date: May 18, 2005 - Professional Development Workshop: Tracking Technology Trends in Libraries. Speaker: Steven Cohen. Time and Place: Morning workshop at Adelphi University. Details to be announced...

 

Members-At-Large : Diane Eidelman committed to working on the Legislative Breakfast in the fall. Lorraine Squires will speak to Edana Chicanowicz regarding taking over the Writers on the Vine series to free Edana to work with her. Fran Altemose reported that 150 tickets for the Monday, September 5, 6:05 p.m. LI Ducks game have been reserved. The base price is $9 and the decision was made to charge $12. The final count and the check are due 6 weeks prior to the game. She will do a flyer for the LILC. Estimates on individually personalized bracelets are high, $1.10 each plus a $350 set up fee. Delivery is 4-5 weeks. The Libraries Matters bracelets also would not be available until early May, too close for the conference. It was decided that we should get the bracelets anyway and use them for later events such as Teen Read Week and the Battle of the Books. The text will read “Suffolk Libraries Matter” and the bracelets will be blue. A motion was put forth to authorize $1500 for the wristband campaign, with details to follow. Angela Richards so moved, Carol Gray seconded, none opposed. The discussion then turned to giveaways for the LILC. On a motion by Diane Eidelman, seconded by Rona Dressler, an expenditure of $3500 was authorized to purchase 1000 Post-It Cubes with the SCLA logo surface printed on the sides. None were opposed. Fran will order.

OLD BUSINESS: Stephen has not yet contacted Art Friedman regarding the Library Directories. He is looking for someone to take over the newsletter when Barbara Hoffman retires. He reminded the board that the date for the April meeting has been changed to Friday, April 22 in the Auditorium.

NEW BUSINESS : Angela Richards would like to see more jobs posted on the website, and it was suggested that perhaps we could link to the NYLA site. Stephen will look into this.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 a.m. by Susan Gottesman on a motion by Fran Altemose, seconded by Maureen Nicolazzi.

Respectfully submitted,

Renee Capitanio