SENYCon: SENYCon2024

Social Media Success: How Our College Library Bridges Communities Through Engaging Content and Connections

Sharon Skopp, SUNY Orange Community College

Short presentation on how our college library used social media to connect with students, faculty, and the local community. Learn about the strategic content and strategies that helped us succeed in bringing everyone together online. Explore the steps we took to build these connections, the impact it had on our community, and the analytics and data that was provided to us to help meet our goals and mission of the library.

Multicultural and Multilingual Communities- How could the library serve these community members?

Yoly Avella, Newburgh Free Library

Discussion -The roles of the library in these communities,  How to differentiate programs, collections, and services,  Creating a welcoming space,  Staffing, Resources available for library staff,  and time for Q & A.  In each of these will be subtopics for presentation and discussion.

10:00 am: I Have No Idea What I’m Doing: Lessons Learned from Building, Implementing, and Retooling a Rules-Based Chatbot

Lauren Dodd, US Military Academy Library

In March 2023, Springshare’s LibAnswers/LibChat service introduced a new, optional Chatbot feature that uses if/then logic and rules, not artificial intelligence, to supplement existing live chat services. USMA Library was very interested in implementing Chatbot….eventually. As we were not in a rush, we wanted to approach the implementation of Chatbot project-management style, by committee/task force, using best practices from user experience, historical chat data, and extensive testing - over a matter of months. While some of those elements were present, the reality of implementation looked a little bit different. When circumstances necessitated a hastier launch, one librarian “built” a Chatbot prototype in 2 workdays, beta tested it over holiday break, and as of this writing, completely reworked certain “flows” multiple times since the soft launch in January 2024. By the time you hear this presentation, Chatbot 1.0 may have evolved to 10.0. Processes will be shared, disclaimers will be disclaimed, and best practices will be ignored (kidding…mostly). There will be many helpful takeaways for anyone interested in crafting their own version of Chatbot, especially for those in smaller libraries where a Chatbot task force isn’t an option. However, the biggest lesson learned is that jumping in, experimenting, and letting go of a perfectionistic ideal when creating a new service from scratch can still provide a solid, successful foundation to build upon.

10:30 am: Aliens Are Coming! Connecting Past Hoaxes to Present Media Literacy

Kristin McClune, Coxsackie-Athens Central School District

Media literacy is a critical component of 21st-century library programs. In this presentation, I will share an interactive lesson (based on "Aliens Are Coming! The True Account of the 1938 War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast" by Meghan McCarthy) I teach to 3rd-4th grade students about the HG Wells "War of the Worlds" broadcast and how we can compare, contrast and connect the reactions of people to the live radio broadcast to misinformation and hoaxes that we see in present times.

BRUNCH

The Art of FAQs

Elizabeth Clarke, Emily Doyle, Marist College

We talk about our creation of FAQs for our library's website and how we use them for reference, public services, and training of new staff.

Putting the Pieces Together: Creating, Editing and Publishing a Hospital History

Mary Jo Russell, Vassar Brothers Medical Center/Nuvance Health

This presentation will take several pieces - creating, editing, publishing - and put them together. Lessons learned along the way will be shared, as well as take-away tips for those who might be interested in embarking on a similar project.

12:25 pm “What Surprised You About This Project”: The New Paltz Historic Documents Project So Far

Josephine Bloodgood, Director of Curatorial & Preservation Affairs, and Donna Dixon, Digital Librarian/Project Manager, Historic Huguenot Street

Following a successful NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources (HCRR) planning grant awarded in 2018, Historic Huguenot Street was awarded a major three-year HCRR implementation grant in 2021 to conserve, digitize, and put online in New York Heritage about 24,000 pages of documents from the early history of New Paltz, 1670-1830. In addition to HHS’s own archival collections, about a third of the documents comprise selections from project partners the Haviland-Heidgerd Historical Collection, the Town of New Paltz, and the Reformed Church of New Paltz. As we near the completion of this phase of the project, we’re reflecting on what we’ve learned—not only about how to plan and carry out a digitization project of this size and scope, but about our own collection—making new connections within it and with other projects beyond New York Heritage.

Books in the Museum, Art in the Library! A Pop-up Swap Pilot at SUNY New Paltz

Catharine Casey-Wagemaker, Noelle Sullivan, Abigail Rosenthal, Madeline Veitch, SUNY New Paltz

In 2023, The Sojourner Truth Library and the Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz devised a pilot pop-up swap program with the aim of strengthening connections and cross-references between museum and library collections. Each semester, a student staff member in the library collaborates with the collection development librarian to select and purchase books related to a current exhibition at the Dorsky, which are displayed in a browsable display inside the museum’s Morgan Anderson Gallery. At the same time, a student on staff with the museum identifies objects related to that current exhibition but not currently on view and collaborates with museum staff to create a display in a glass case on the library’s main floor. For both displays, the student creator authors a short introduction to their selections and process. This project is going into its second semester this spring and has yet to be formally assessed, but possible benefits include increased visibility for both the museum and library, collection growth aligned with campus exhibitions (in the case of the library), and opportunities for student staff to gain practical experience in librarianship / museum studies.