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Cheery Friday Greetings,
There are a few items to bring to your attention at the end of this chilly, snowy week!
Advocate on Monday in Albany for the Freedom to Read! The New York Library Association just announced a Read-in-Action program scheduled for Monday, December 8 at 12:00 p.m. in the NYS Capitol War Room. "Join us for a read-in as we demand that Governor Kathy Hochul sign the Freedom to Read Act & stop book banning in New York. It is not just a 'red state problem,' New York has also experienced it. More than 50 books were challenged last year at New York state school or public libraries according to the American Library Association." Sign up to participate. Here is their initial letter of support.
SCRLC’s 2024–2025 Annual Report. We shared the link with our contact list last month, but I am including it again in case you missed it. It provides a strong snapshot of our activities over the past year. All staff contributed to its creation, and Uncommonplace, a local graphic design studio, brought it beautifully to life. Please take a look if you haven’t already!
Communications: SCRLC Listserv & Constant Contact. Some of our SCRLC colleagues subscribe to our distribution list, scrlc-l, while others receive only our Constant Contact messages. Many are signed up for both! What is the difference? Formal announcements go out via Constant Contact, while items such as learning opportunities from other organizations, job postings, and advocacy alerts are shared through scrlc-l.
While our Membership Expectations don’t require directors to subscribe to either list, staying informed is essential to full participation in the Council. If you’re receiving this message, you’re already on our Constant Contact list—thank you! You may also want to subscribe to scrlc-l if you’re not (contact Diane Capalongo). If you are not the director, you might check that they are subscribed to at least Constant Contact. Communication is crucial to organizations like ours, and we’ll be rethinking our strategies in the months ahead.
Plan of Service 2026–2031. As you know, SCRLC has been working on the new Plan of Service. The Design Team has been meeting regularly, supported by several Task Groups addressing everything from assessment and goals to trends and our mission statement. The State Library posted the instructions last month; now we await a new platform to replace Baker & Taylor’s system, which is used to submit the Plan. We hope this will be resolved by the April 1 deadline. In the meantime, we are assembling all components of the Plan in a Google Document for safekeeping. We plan to share it with the membership in advance for a comment period, most likely in mid-February. Stay tuned!
Learning Opportunities. We are developing a wide range of programs for the winter and spring. SCRLC is also collaborating with several other Empire State Library Councils (ESLN) to offer ADA Title II programming, including a February session with Stephanie "Cole" Adams. In the meantime, we hope you’ll join our upcoming Web Accessibility Learning Circle on December 9. It will be an informal conversation focused on progress, next steps, and areas of confusion. See below to register.
Good News from IMLS. On December 3, the Institute of Museum and Library Services released a Statement of Agency’s Reinstatement of Terminated IMLS Grants: Upon further review, the Institute of Museum and Library Services has reinstated all federal grants. This action supersedes any prior notices which may have been received related to grant termination. Grantees should access the agency's electronic grants management system for further information. The American Library Association has also issued a statement on this development. Unfortunately, additional IMLS staff have not returned to work.
Free Books: A Gift from the Family of Dr. John (Jack) Martin. Some of you may remember Dr. Martin, a former SCRLC Board member. As director of the Corning Museum of Glass' Research Library, he was instrumental in the Museum Library becoming one of SCRLC’s founding members. In recognition of his contributions and his strong support for education, the Board voted around 2007 to name our then-new training center in his honor.
His son, Todd, recently reached out to offer approximately 60 books from Dr. Martin’s private library—three boxes in total. The collection focuses on code development and code breaking, particularly British intelligence efforts during WWII. Dr. Martin himself worked on code analysis in England during the war, and near its end was sent to Norway to help crack Hitler’s top-secret enciphering machine.
Todd is happy to donate individual titles or the entire collection to any interested library or institution, and he is willing to deliver them personally. Here is an itemized list of the titles. If you are interested, please reach out to Todd at tmartinarch@earthlink.net.
Yours in partnership,
Mary-Carol
Mary-Carol Lindbloom
Executive Director
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