Brenda Shufelt, Hudson Area Library
I would like to highlight the diversity of support we received and what we were able to do with the help from SENYLRC on a variety of tasks, projects, initiatives that include scanning to archival quality, updating a Reproduction Policy, archiving a map collection, NY Heritage & Empire ADC, developing a contract for historic document donations, developing a Deed of Gift, etc. IDK if this would be useful but I really am amazed at the help we get.
Adrianna Martinez, SUNY New Paltz; Kate Bellody, SUNY New Paltz; Emily Smith, SUNY New Paltz
The shift to remote learning during the height of the COVID pandemic had significant lasting impacts on how the Sojourner Truth Library at SUNY New Paltz communicates and connects with our campus community. We relied heavily on digital communication tools and spaces, including our existing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) platform in a traditionally in-person library environment. Our presentation will focus on how we revitalized the FAQs to serve as a main access point for communicating key library information. The FAQs became a collaborative tool for library faculty, staff, and students that has endured beyond the initial shift to remote learning in 2020.
The presentation will include our approach to FAQs as a collaborative effort and “conversation” between library faculty, staff, and student workers. Student worker perspectives, in particular, have been a key part of this process. We will highlight their work in this space and how the addition of their voices has enriched this project. We will also discuss practical strategies for creating and maintaining FAQs. We hope to inspire a fresh perspective on the universal concept of FAQs as well as approaches to incorporating the voices of student employees and community in these efforts.
Tessa Killian, Southeastern NY Library Resources Council
Ryan Biracree, Desmond-Fish Public Library
As social media becomes a fact of life for an ever-increasing user base, not just the young, users will find themselves with different challenges and different attractions depending on their age and experiences. This workshop explores the unique difficulties and opportunities in cross-generational conversations and conflict over social media and online life -- whether working with parents and teenagers to set social media guidelines, helping adult children of seniors vulnerable to exploitation or misinformation, providing support for loved ones of people who have fallen victim to radicalization online, or navigating online community groups representing disparate voices, librarians are singularly positioned to initiate and facilitate conversations to bridge age groups and their digital lives. Together, we'll explore techniques for understanding patrons' generational points of reference for their online experiences (and how that understanding can be expressed to one another), the unique vulnerabilities of each segment of the population, and how to structure effective working conversations. We'll also look at a number of successes and failures to help us plan programming and services to support our communities.
Lori Mullooly, Jennifer Chess, Lisa Gomez from the USMA Library at West Point
In academic libraries, departments can be siloed and unaware of each other's activities. However, when colleagues stretch beyond these "walled gardens" the results can yield creative projects and a rewarding experience for students, faculty, and staff. This case study will present a successful initiative at the USMA Library: The Tiny Art Show “Magnificent Miniatures.” Several librarians with different and discrete roles worked together to create a passive library program, market that program across campus and then produce a major art exhibit. This collaboration allowed cadets to create original artwork and engage with one another, the exhibit, and the library collection in a unique and scholarly way. Ultimately, this art exhibit was digitized, which provided further engagement outside of the library and across the wider campus community. Participants will learn ways to adapt this program to their library, including scaling this program up or down. Participants will learn ways to adapt this program to their library. We will also cover lessons learned.
Zachary Spalding, Southeastern NY Library Resources Council
People and organizations make decisions daily, and every decision has a particular risk. However, when making a decision and understanding the risks, are people aware of their biases toward making decisions? Are organization risks being ignored, or are resources being developed for a negligible risk while a more significant risk can be ignored? This will be a 20-minute overview of the issue and actions that can be done to help minimize biases in decision-making.
Amanda Primiano, Melanie Turner, Michael Maggin, Samantha Angarola, Elizabeth Perle, Monroe Free Library
What if there was a way to involve your community in a yearlong themed series and still manage to stay on budget? Over the last year at Monroe Free Library, we have been able to do just that with our Year of the Arts program. What started as feedback from our community and a “big picture” thinking session with our staff, blossomed into a year's worth of programs that utilized our in-house talent, library displays, exhibitions, and local artists.
Along the way we learned a lot, and, in this session, we will share how we got started, our triumphs and fails, how we stayed on budget, our marketing efforts and how we are sustaining the effort and motivation to make this series a success.
KellyAnne McGuire, Bard College at Simon's Rock
We generally think of programming and instruction as two separate threads of librarianship: programming is often used to lure students into the library and build relationships before the “real work” of information literacy instruction or research help can begin. Even when instruction is delivered in a “fun” way, through topic-based courses or gamified one shots, these often happen in a formal academic setting, such as classroom. The delineation between the two is often clear and obvious, to librarians and students. What if we freed information literacy instruction from the classroom, and created opportunities for research and source evaluation that go beyond library databases and peer-reviewed journals?
Based on my experience running a long-standing knitting club (which turned into a popular J-Term course) at my library, I will share how tying library instruction to a craft gives students ample opportunity to learn the critical information skills they need while benefiting from the sense of community that programming provides. We will discuss the advantages of weaving programming and instruction together to leverage the best of both, and will consider how pairing traditional information literacy with non-typical library activities expands the possibilities for skill building. Participants will brainstorm ways of integrating programming and instruction around common interests into their own roles at their respective libraries.
Kristin Perkins and Risa Pomerselig, Millbrook Library
In October 2022, we hosted a successful volunteer fair, inviting fifteen organizations to the library to run tables and mobilizing community members to learn about opportunities, from healthcare service to maintaining local trails. In our capacities as the Adult Program Coordinator and the Teen Program Coordinator, respectively, we were able to build connections to local nonprofits and engage our patrons (young and old) in meaningful causes, fulfilling a vital purpose of libraries today. Now we’d like to share tips and tricks for transferring volunteer fairs to other libraries and have a conversation with programmers and librarians who have done similar work.
This presentation will go over the steps we took in our months of planning, how running the event worked, the common questions nonprofits asked, and how we followed up to maintain positive relationships with the attending nonprofits. Importantly, we will cover how we found nonprofits to work with, thinking outside the box to recruit volunteers for a wide slate of causes. Following this short informational session, we’ll lead a discussion to help attendees brainstorm nonprofit causes they want to see represented. We hope to share tips and strategies for maximizing participation among programmers who have done similar work.
Our presentation will empower attendees to run volunteer fairs and create an informal network of programmers working to connect communities with the nonprofits doing so much good.
Aaron Burke, South Ave Elementary School
We have been making a morning news show for a number of years here at South Avenue Elementary School. It is a powerful medium that can create a shared experience though an entire school. This presentation would be an opportunity to look at the time, equipment, and know-how required to start a morning news show. We will create a basic news show on the spot and trade ideas to make a news engaging and meaningful.
Beth Vredenburg, Poughkeepsie Public Library
This past year, I put together a new library branch that is housed in a building where the tenants are non-profit organizations that provide resources of all kinds to the community. The process has been and still is challenging. The idea of the Family Partnership Center is innovative and currently one-of-a-kind. I'm excited to share not only what I've learned during this process, but how this project has changed our library outreach collaboration and brought about new opportunities.
Katrina Hohlfeld & Katie Karkheck, Valley Cottage Library
Board games are a great vehicle for community interaction, exploring new strategies and mechanics, and just having fun. Of course they fit in perfectly at public libraries! This presentation will explore how to go about building a circulating board game collection for your library, as well as including tips and tricks for organization, cataloging, and in-house usage for programming. We will go through our own process of how we built and expanded our collection, challenges you may come across, and how we worked around them. This presentation will share resources for game selection and acquisition, as well as an outline of our processes in organizing and labeling the games for ease of patron use.
Beth Vredenburg and TJ Lamanna, Poughkeepsie Public Library
TJ and Beth will discuss the implementation of our new Seed Sowing Center and the procedures we have developed along with programming and a library of things list that patrons can utilize as part of our services.