SCRLC NEWS

SCRLC will be closed Friday, July 4th in observance of Independence Day.

Have a safe and happy 4th of July.

Cheery Friday Greetings,

I hope that you are enjoying the cooler temperatures today. Hopefully, it will stay dry for the various graduation ceremonies happening tonight around the region! As always, there are several items to pass along.

Advocacy. Slightly after midnight on June 18, the Freedom to Read Act (S.1099/A.7777) passed the legislature. Thank you to all of the advocates who contacted their legislators in support of this Act! It is now on the way to the Governor's office, so please urge Governor Hochul to sign without delay (she has until December—half of the school year). Here is the contact form; or, call her office at 1-518-474-8390.

Now we must work on passing the Open Shelves Act in the Assembly (it already passed in the Senate), so it is a great time to thank legislators Re: the Freedom to Read Act and to advocate with Assembly members for the Open Shelves Act (S.1100-A/A.3119-B). Why didn't it already pass the Assembly? We hear that due to the lateness of the State Budget; they simply ran out of time. Thank you for your continuing work!

Bibliographic & Referral Center (BARC) Update. Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3) will continue to operate BARC through mid-August. Because there is a period of winding down, i.e., returning materials, tracking outstanding requests, etc., the last day to place a new request through BARC is Thursday, July 31. If you have ordered an item through BARC/TC3, you will need to finish the process through TC3, e.g., return materials to them.

While SCRLC lacks the capacity to offer ILL as it has been for the past several years, which included primarily fiction, we expect to be able to handle research and medical requests. The Board will consider BARC at their July 24 meeting. Please continue to email me your thoughts and suggestions—they are greatly appreciated. See also the last issue of the News for information regarding BARC.

Library Assistants. Last week, our region hosted two statewide library association meetings: The SUNY Librarians Association at SUNY Delhi and the New York State Library Assistants’ Association in Binghamton. While we were not able to attend the latter, we’ve heard great things about how well the conference went!

Although SCRLC has not had a formal library assistants’ group in quite some time, there are many ways for library workers in all roles to engage with SCRLC. From serving on an advisory committee or task group to joining us for continuing education events--both ours and the Empire State Library Network’s (ESLN)—there is something for everyone. Also, consider participating in one of the upcoming Regional Conversations—details below.

If there is interest in reviving a regional group for library assistants, we’d be more than happy to help facilitate, whether in-person or via Zoom. Your work is essential to libraries—they couldn’t do it without you!

Regional Conversations. As you know, we are in the throes of developing the 2026-2031 Plan of Service. A few months ago, the Plan of Service Design Team distributed a membership survey to help assess member needs--thanks to those of you who participated! (And yes, we will be sharing results!)

We also think it is important to hear from you in other ways, such as the virtual Regional Conversations that were held for the current Plan of Service. So, we've scheduled some this time, too. Sure, the conversations will provide feedback for the Plan of Service, but they are a also a great opportunity for you to network with your colleagues. What do you want to share with your colleagues? What questions do you have for each other?

The Conversations will be held over Zoom and are open to all library and cultural education workers, across positions and roles. There are some general sessions and others are designed for specific sectors. Each one is scheduled for 90 minutes to include ample networking time.

We are excited to be hosting this round of Conversations and hope that you will join us--and your colleagues to discuss successes, challenges, and plans! Click here to register.

Have a happy and restful 4th of July!

Yours in partnership,

Mary-Carol

Mary-Carol Lindbloom

Executive Director

MEMBER NEWS

Thanks to all our academic and public libraries that were local cooling centers this week!

Congratulations to incoming New York Library Association (NYLA) Councilor-at-Large (Academic/Special) Julia Corrice, Metadata Operations Librarian at Cornell University Library.

Nominate a Colleague for a NYLA Award! The New York Library Association (NYLA) has launched the nomination form for their annual NYLA awards. You can find it here on their website. It is open for just over a month-- nominations close on July 21. 

The awards are as follows:

• Mary Bobinski Innovative Public Library Director Award (the nominee must be a NYLA member)
• NYLA's Distinguished Achievement Award (the nominee must be a NYLA member)
• Librarian of the Year (Academic/Special)
• Librarian of the Year (Public)
• Librarian of the Year (School)

The Network of the National Libraries of Medicine Regional 7 newsletter had a member spotlight on a partnership between the Harris Memorial Library in Otego (part of the Four County Library System) and Bassett Healthcare to help caregivers and community members living with chronic medical conditions.

ROAD TRIP

SUNYLA Conference, SUNY Delhi

June 19 & 20

Logan Rath of SUNY Broome accepting an award for the IDS Project.

Alfred University Libraries' staff enjoying the conference petting zoo.

Holly Kuhl of Cayuga Community College presenting on Tackling SUNY's Gen-Ed Information Literacy Mandate.

SUNY Cortland's Lisa Czirr and Jenifer Phelen presenting on Culturally Responsive Information Literacy Instruction.

Alfred University Librarians Shauna-Kay Harrison, Rai Yiannakos, Samantha Dannick and Brian Sullivan.

SUNY Delhi Library Director, Carrie Fishner at the end of a successful conference.

CORRECTION: In the last edition of the news, we misidentified the person pictured on the visit to the Edith B. Ford Memorial Library. The photo was of Programming Specialist, Jamie Lynn Vangalio. Apologies!

SPOTLIGHT ON SUSTAINABILITY

Jennifer Embree and Neyda Gilman of Binghamton University Library have a report published in The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) on The Story of the Modern Seed Library: A Historical Analysis of Seed Saving, Its Evolution Through the Ages, and its Current Impact on Community, Culture, and Connection.

They received an award for this publication at the SUNYLA Conference last week.

Building Psychological Safety and Supportive Cultures in Teams

July 17, 2pm

Meet the NYLA President (In person event)

July 21, 12:30pm

Regional Conversations

Join your colleagues to discuss challenges, successes, and plans for the future!

July 22 - September 12 (12 sessions available)

SAVE THE DATE!

for our Annual Meeting at the Park Church in Elmira, with local history tours to follow!

October 24

Events produced by the eight other library councils in the Empire State Library Network are open for SCRLC members to attend.

Intro to Proposal Writing (NYS Library & Candid)

July 8, 11am

Safe Labeling and Marking of Archival Materials (LILRC)

July 9, 10am

Green Cleaning Principles and Alternatives (RRLC)

July 10, 1pm

Collective Wisdom: Collaborative Learning to Support Your Community Archiving Projects (DHPSNY Workshop)

July 12, 10am - 4pm

Finger Lakes Library System

2025 PILLARS Symposium

A one-day, online symposium that will bring educators and librarians together to share knowledge on the topic of student readiness for college and beyond

This year's theme:

Is AI On the Test? A Symposium for Educators Who Weren't Ready for Robots

July 11, 9:30am - 3:30pm

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Main Street Summer

Images of Newfield / Newfield Historical Society

New Collection: Cooperstown Graduate Program Oral Histories

One of the 2024-2025 SCRLC Digitization Grant projects was digitizing 13,000+ catalog cards for the Cooperstown Graduate Program (CGP) and SUNY Oneonta's Milne Library. Those cards are effectively a whole inventory of the CGP's extensive oral history collection. For decades, CGP students have interviewed local people on subjects like square dancing, folklore, jump rope rhymes, and quilts for their graduate projects. These cards list the project name, student author, interviewee name and address, topical subject, and physical inventory (e.g. "2 reel to reel tapes, 5 p. manuscript, & 1 map," etc.). SUNY Oneonta professor William Walker intends to use the detailed inventory spreadsheet created from this digitization project to plan and apply for a large, multi-year grant, likely with the continued cooperation of Milne Library. Until then, this small sample collection of scanned cards shares a taste of the subjects and illustrates the way card catalogs (once ubiquitous and now obsolete) could store and save so much information.