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September 15, 2023 Council Meeting @ VIRTUAL / President's Report

« on: September 13, 2023, 10:01:15 AM »

Welcome back to another academic year!

First a huge shout out and thank you to Jennifer DeVito for all her work as SUNYLA president last year, and thank you for helping me prepare for this role.

We had another amazing conference at SUNY Maritime in June. Jillian Kehoe and her team did an incredible job putting the conference together and being our hosts for those three days. SUNYLA looks forward to the 2024 Annual Conference at Buffalo State College. Charles Lyons (2nd VP) will update us on those preparations.

Looking ahead we have decided to continue the trend of holding council meetings via Zoom. Exceptions will be for the March and June meetings which will be held at Buffalo State College as well as zoom. The SUNYLA Council meeting schedule for 2022-2023 is as follows:

• Friday, September 15 @10:00AM - Virtual
• Friday, November 17 @10:00AM - Virtual
• Friday, January 19 @10:00AM  - Virtual
• Friday, March 22 @10:00AM  - Buffalo State College and Virtual
• Wednesday, June 12 @10:00AM - Buffalo State College (Annual Conference) and Virtual

Our position statement regarding the elimination of funding for NOVELNY resources was sent out. I want to thank Jennifer DeVito (Past President) and Jill Locascio (1st Vice President) for all their help in drafting this document. The position statement was sent to the New York State Division of Library Services, specifically Lauren Moore (State Librarian), to Speaker Carl E. Heastie of the New York State Assembly, and to the Office of the Governor (Kathy Hochul). The statement is also now posted on the SUNYLA blog. Of those who the document was sent to only one response has been heard so far. Lauren Moore (State Librarian) responded saying it had been received thanking us for our position on the subject.
NOVELNY – NY Alliance of Library Services & Constituents
In mid-August Sheryl Knab, WNYLRC Council Chair, reached out to myself and constituents from around New York State to form a combined alliance in an effort to tackle the issues of the NOVELNY defunding. The first NYALS meeting with constituents was held on August 25th. Representatives from RICS (Regional Information Centers), BOCES, public libraries, and SUNY were present. Synopsis of discussion and next steps to be covered in Old Business.

• Sheryl Knab, Executive Director, Western New York Library Resources Council and Chair - New York Alliance of Library Systems
• Tessa Killian, Executive Director, Southeastern NY Library Resources Council and Chair - Empire State Library Network
• Maureen Clements, Associate Director of SUNY Library Services, SUNY OLIS
• Adam R. Saunders, Online Learning and Instruction Librarian, SUNY Morrisville and President of SUNY Library Association (SUNYLA)
• Kristine Kasbohm, Director - Canisius University and representing Private Academic Libraries
• Tom Lawrence, Director, Poughkeepsie Public Library District (Representing Central Public Libraries group)
• Scott Budelmann, Madison Oneida BOCES
• Michele LaVoie, Olean Public Library (representing Central Public Libraries)
• Esta Tovstiadi, SUNLY OLIS
• Chris Harris, Genesee Valley BOCES


An OLIS Advisory Board Meeting was held on September 11th, some highlights from the meeting included:
• An OLIS Strategic Plan update and roadmap
• OLIS annual report will be coming out this winter
• OLIS website update
• Updates to the ELD courier services and eBook ILL Pilot
• Updates to the Diversity Fellows Program
• NOVELny Updates/ task force creation
• Transition to the OLIS Advisory Board and updating of policies
• Updates to Interest Groups. IEC is now the Systems & Process Interest Group
• Development of a cataloging survey
• Alma/Primo VE five-year look back – Reflection and future plans

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September 15, 2023 Council Meeting @ VIRTUAL / Re: Campus Updates

« on: September 12, 2023, 09:44:21 AM »

The SUNY Morrisville Library has been busy over the summer months and for the beginning of the fall semester. Systems Librarian Angela Rhodes has been promoted to Full Librarian. Congratulations Angela!
Our new Instruction Librarian Adam Mizelle is beginning his first full semester here at Morrisville and was voted in as a senator on our College Senate. Online Learning Library Adam Saunders began his tenure as the President of SUNYLA and joined the JED Committee on campus which focuses on student mental and suicide prevention and awareness. There are several ongoing searches that the library is involved in which include the Library Director and Administrative Assistant.

The bulk of the summer was taken up by the beginning phases of our library renovation project and collections weeding. In the spring 2023 semester we had formed the Library Renovation Task Force made up of a selection of representatives from the library, various support service areas, teaching faculty and administration. This task force reviewed potential architects for the project and made their selection. Over the course of the latter half of the spring semester and part of early summer architects reviewed the building and held meetings with campus stakeholders who would be using and occupying future office space. Our goal is to convert the library building into an academic success building, one which would house all areas of student support services.

The first action item as a part of this process was weeding and deselecting a large portion of the library print collection in order to make room for additional support service office spaces. To accommodate changes to the physical space & services offered, we have reduced the footprint of our print collection by roughly 40%. This will enable us to better meet the needs of our dynamic student body going forward. Starting June 5th we deselected 18,000 books in our fiction collection. These were selected based on the following criteria:
•   No use in 13 years
•   Not part of our Sheila Johnson, rare books, or local history collections
•   Not the last copy in SUNY
•   Not older than 1900 or newer than 2000 for publication year.
Then Starting June 26th an additional 15,000 books from the remainder of the collection were deselected.
The Library offered these materials to other SUNY systems and the campus community before the deselection process began. Upon finishing the second set of deselections the library shifted the collection in order to reduce the footprint of the second floor stacks. The library will be removing the empty shelving from the second floor during the winter break.

As the literal dust settled from our deselection process and the fall semester began the library once again offered its Library Lemonade Stand as a treat for freshman during move in day. Despite it being cold and rainy we still had a blast welcoming the new students and their families to campus.

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June 14, 2023 Council Meeting @ SUNY Maritime (Annual) / 1st VP Report

« on: June 07, 2023, 03:00:20 PM »

The results of this year’s election are:
1st Vice-President: Jill Locascio (SUNY College of Optometry)
2nd Vice-President: Charles Lyons (Buffalo State)
Treasurer: Leah Fitzgerald (SUNY Canton)

The 2022-2023 terms will begin at the end of the SUNYLA Annual Conference at SUNY Maritime (Friday).

The (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Accessibility Committee) IDEA Committee Creation Vote passed!
Thank you everyone for taking the time to vote in this year’s elections.


Jennifer DeVito and Adam Saunders hosted a second Delegates meeting on April 28th. Highlights of the meeting included the following:

-Review of the SUNYLA Delegate website and Delegate Toolkit. Thank you Delegates for all the feedback you provided!
-Discussion of Delegate representation at the conference. Jill came through and ordered us Delegate ribbons for name tags that same day. Thank you Jill!
-In-person delegate get together at the SUNYLA Conference. There was a lot of interest in doing a group dine out. Jill recommended Paddy’s on the Bay, a local pub/restaurant. An email went out to delegates confirming that we will have a dine out at Paddy’s on Wednesday, June 14th at 7:30PM.
-There was further discussion on use of the forums. Delegates provided a number of suggestions of alternative platforms that could be adopted to improve communication and collaboration: Slack, Discord, Groups.IO, etc

Looking ahead for next year we will plan on having another delegate meeting in August before the fall semester begins. Delegates were interested in some themed meetings during the year. One example being on putting together information for the newsletter. There was also some curiosity in having future newsletters based around a central theme. We will follow up with April Davies.

We will be holding a new member/1st SUNYLA conference meeting today (Wed. the 14th) at 5:30. If this is your first conference, you are a new member, a library school student, or you just want to stop in and say hello, please join me and your fellow new SUNYLA members.

Finally I am humbly looking forward to serving as your president for the next year.

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March 24, 2023 Council Meeting @ SUNY Maritime / 1st VP Report

« on: March 21, 2023, 11:25:19 AM »

Spring Elections

Nominations are still open for 1st Vice President/President-Elect, 2nd Vice President/Conference Chair, and Treasurer.  There has been some interest from several individuals already, but that does not mean they need to run uncontested! Any member current with their dues is eligible to run for a position. This year is also a Campus Delegate election year (odd numbered years). Delegates are free to serve consecutive terms with no term limits. Please email me at saundear@morrisville.edu if you are interested in running or encourage one of your colleagues.  The election will open in late April.

The position terms are as follows:

1st Vice President/President-Elect: The 1st VP serves a 3-year term.  The first year of the term they serve as 1st VP and are responsible for coordinating delegates, chairing the Nomination Committee, and helping the President as needed.  The second year of the term they assume the position of President and see to the running of SUNYLA and serve as the liaison to the SUNY Council of Library Directors.  The final year of the term they serve as Past-President and advise the President as needed.

2nd Vice President (Conference Chair): The 2nd VP serves a 1-year term and is responsible for organizing the next SUNYLA conference (2020) including overseeing the various committees.  The 2nd VP will serve as a liaison between the conference library and SUNYLA.

Treasurer: The Treasurer serves for two years, and may be re-elected.  The Treasurer receives, records, holds, and distributes all monies of the Association in accordance with Policy on the Expenditure of Association Funds; maintains a record of paid members and forwards names of Delegates to the Membership Committee Chairperson; prepares a written annual statement of accounts for Membership; and makes recommendations to the Council for changes in procedures, spending limits, and policies.

End-of-Year Delegate Meeting

An email was sent out to all delegates announcing another SUNYLA Delegate only meeting in late April/early May as a sort of end of the academic year wrap up and discussion session. It will also be an opportunity to reveal changes made to the Delegate section of the SUNYLA webpage based on feedback from the previous Delegates meeting. Please fill out the Doodle Poll regarding your availability for either April 28th, May 5th, or May 12th. All starting at 10AM.

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March 24, 2023 Council Meeting @ SUNY Maritime / Re: Campus Updates

« on: March 21, 2023, 10:07:52 AM »

SUNY Morrisville welcomes its new Instructional Services Librarian Adam Mizelle. Adam comes to us from Widener University in PA where he was the Information Literacy Coordinator. His past experiences with IL coordination and the ACRL framework will be a great asset as he tackles the process of working with faculty on integrating the new GNED IL standards into their courses. Adam is a fan of fishing, music, and tabletop rpgs.

Systems Librarian Angela Rhodes presented at the annual SUNYLA Midwinter Conference. Her presentation titled From Scratches on Paper to Auto-Generated Pivot Tables: The Evolution of Reference Statistics at SUNY Morrisville, discussed the history of keeping reference statistics and the process that pushed the keeping of these statistics from one iteration to another as well as the kind of data the library is seeking now.

The Morrisville library is hosting a new library gallery exhibit by artist Mark Diorio. The exhibit titled The Last Portrait: Reflections at the end of life, is a photographic exploration into the remaining days of the narrative. Every person has a unique story, shaped by life's challenges and accomplishments. The end of life is just another chapter - our final challenge - and it provokes an equally unique response. The exhibit will be on display until April 11th.

Our 5th Video Game Bookclub is currently running! We are playing through Supergiant’s Hades and had our first and second discussion sessions on March 3rd and 21st. Our final discussion will be on April 7th.

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January 20, 2023 Council Meeting @ VIRTUAL / 1st VP Report

« on: January 19, 2023, 08:15:28 AM »

A short update for today.

Justin Crossfox (Buffalo State), Charles Lyons (Buffalo State), and I had a quick meeting earlier this week to discuss some preliminary planning for the SUNYLA 2024 conference tentatively being held at Buffalo State College. Justin and Charles are currently working out the logistics for hosting the conference.

Reminder that elections are in March. We are still looking for individuals interested in filling the Treasurer position. If you want to nominate yourself or someone else, or if you have questions about the positions, please contact me (saundear@morrisville.edu). https://sunyla.org/a-manual-of-duties-and-responsibilities/

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January 20, 2023 Council Meeting @ VIRTUAL / Re: Campus Updates

« on: January 10, 2023, 01:32:21 PM »

SUNY Morrisville congratulated Christine Rudecoff, Director of Libraries, on her retirement on December 9th. Chris had been a member of the SUNY Morrisville community since 2007, starting as an Instruction librarian, and then moving into the seat of Director of Libraries in 2010. Chris had also been a strong advocate for barrier-free access to information and the use of Open Education Resources at SUNY Morrisville. As director, Chris always maintained a student first approach to the library, ensuring that its space and services evolved to meet student needs as technologies and information access trends changed over time.

The search for a new director has begun and Systems & Electronic Resources Librarian Angela Rhodes (rhodesam@morrisville.edu) has taken over as interim.

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November 4, 2022 Council Meeting @ VIRTUAL / 1st VP Report

« on: November 03, 2022, 09:07:21 AM »

Just a short update today.

Buffalo State College has informed us that it is interested in hosting the 2024 SUNYLA Conference. Plans for hosting are still tentative. Charles Lyons and Justin Crossfox are working with their campus as we speak to hopefully pull it off. More updates on this to come as well as who will be the conference planning chair and 2nd VP candidate. 

We are still looking for nominations for open Seats. 1st Vice President and Treasurer will be open in the spring. If you are interested in running or know someone who may be interested please let me know via email.

Thank you to all delegates for posting your campus updates! We love to hear all the news coming out of each campus.

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November 4, 2022 Council Meeting @ VIRTUAL / Re: Campus Updates

« on: November 01, 2022, 09:22:36 AM »

Just a small update since our last post in September.

The library is also fortunate to once again be hosting the art of CNY local artist Lee Brown Coye in a gallery display titled Night Creeps: The Art of Lee Brown Coye. Lee Brown Coye is best known for his macabre fantasy and horror illustrations.  For more than fifty years his artistic talents covered a wide range of paintings, scratch art, as well as illustrations for books and magazines. The gallery display will remain in the library through the month of September.

SUNY Morrisville also saw the departure of one of its own. Michelle Mitchell has found new opportunities as Reference and Instruction Librarian at Syracuse University. Michelle was an incredible asset to our team and will be sorely missed. We wish her the greatest of luck in her future endeavors.

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September 16, 2022 Council Meeting @ VIRTUAL / 1st VP Report

« on: September 13, 2022, 11:37:18 AM »

Welcome to 2022-2023 SUNYLA!

First a big thanks to everyone for this opportunity to serve as your 1st Vice President.

Emails have been sent out to current campus Delegates as a welcome to the new academic year, make sure the Delegate list is up to date, and reminders of Delegate roles and tools available. I want to welcome Justin Crossfox, Lori Wienke, and Thomas Mazza as the new Delegates representing Buffalo State College, SUNY Oneonta, and Onondaga Community College!

An email was also sent out to those campuses in which no Delegate is currently listed. We have heard back from two campuses so far, please welcome Amanda Bailey from Corning Community College and Alicia Marrese from Finger Lakes Community College.

It is never to early to start thinking about Spring Elections, March will be here sooner than you think! Seats for 1st Vice President, 2nd Vice President, and Treasurer will be open. If you are interested in running or know someone who may be interested please let me know via email. Also, with next year being an odd year (2023) campuses should plan on holding Delegate elections. Remember Delegates can run for multiple terms with no term limits.

Respectfully,
Adam Saunders

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September 16, 2022 Council Meeting @ VIRTUAL / Re: Campus Updates

« on: September 12, 2022, 02:14:15 PM »

SUNY Morrisville has had a relatively quiet summer, here are just a few updates from the past few months.

SUNY Morrisville held its annual Professional Development Conference in May. Campus librarians were involved with a number of the sessions held.
•D2L Brightspace Update & Q&A: Adam Saunders & Yunkai Xu
•Gear Up for Continuing Appointment & Promotion: Angela Rhodes, Ben Ballard, Diane Tice, & Michelle Mitchell
•Y'all Ready for This?: Information Literacy Skills Roadmap to Prepare for the New SUNY GER: Adam Saunders, Michelle Mitchell, & Angela Rhodes
•“Tech Savvy”? Discussions on technology support for Generation Z: Adam Saunders
•Games in the Classroom: Fresh Perspectives on Video Games and Education: Jamal Verity, Richard Marcoux, & Angela Rhodes

Librarians Michelle Mitchell, Angela Rhodes, and Adam Saunders also presented a poster at the SUNYLA 2022 Conference. The poster titled Navigating the New SUNY GER with an Info Lit Map outlined the process of developing a rubric which formalizes the approach to the integration of information literacy skills throughout the SUNY Morrisville curriculum at all course levels.

Adam Saunders was awarded the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Librarianship at the 2022 SUNY Morrisville Commencement Ceremony.

The SUNY Morrisville Library hosted a Look back at 1972 gallery wall display featuring photographs of that year in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Class of 1972. This display took part during the campus homecoming weekend and also hosted a number of yearbooks and other materials for guests to look through.

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March 25, 2022 Council Meeting @ Farmingdale State College / Re: Campus Updates

« on: March 24, 2022, 04:21:48 PM »

SUNY Morrisville library has been doing a great deal of work with OER and affordable learning materials. Librarian Adam Saunders and Director Chris Rudecoff have finished their work on the second SUNY OER Sustainability Cohort and presented at the campus professional development conference. This presentation titled OER, ALM & Inclusive Access: Navigating the course learning materials quagmire Was aimed at faculty and how they may find solid ground in making sense of all these various course learning materials. Learning the differences, similarities, and misconceptions behind three of the most common types of course learning materials: Open Education Resources (OER), Affordable Learning Materials (ALM), and inclusive access. The librarian also launched a new Affordable Learning Material Task Force under the purview of the campus Provost.

The library gallery is fortunate to be hosting Living in Limbo: Portraits from the border, featuring the works of artist Bill McLaughlin.

The library has been hosting a number of displays which include: Blind Date with a Book, Black History Month, Freedom to Read, Women's History Month, and a special display on immigration to coincide with the art gallery.

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November 3, 2017 Council Meeting @ Albany / Morrisville State College

« on: November 02, 2017, 09:21:10 AM »

Librarians

Librarians Angela Rhodes, Mandy Babirad, and Adam Saunders were at the Journey into Literacy conference at SUNY Potsdam alongside associate professor Wyatt Galusky, and presented a session titled Exploring Literacy Through a Video Game “Book Club”. The session went extremely well, with participants that were eager to learn about this unique new strategy to engage students with literacy techniques. Along these same lines the librarians also hosted their second Video Game Book Club in October. This time we explored the indie title Brothers a Tale of Two Sons.

Events

At the end of October to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the publication of the first novel in the Harry Potter series (Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone), the library hosted a read-a-thon of the first book.  The goal was to try to read the whole novel out loud in one night! A number of faculty and campus administration took on the task of reading 30-60 minute segments of the book, including the campus head brewer Micheal Coons and Dean/Associate Provost Paul Griffin.

The library is celebrating writing with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the National Academic Writing Month (PhD2Published) events and displays. In addition on Thursday, November 30th in the Morrisville Library Reading Room there will be a write-in: a night of camaraderie, sweat, and tears as local writers make their final push to finish their writing before midnight. A collection of writing guides, notable authors, and inspirational material will also be on display throughout the month.

An exhibit showcasing art created by veterans & their supporters will be on display November 9 - January 5. Titled Serving: Before, During and After, an opening reception will be held on November 9 from 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. in the library gallery.

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November 18, 2016 Council meeting at Albany / Re: Campus Updates

« on: November 16, 2016, 02:28:24 PM »

Morrisville library is proud to announce the hiring of John Coger as our new full time evening circulation supervisor. John was previously with us part-time and is even a Morrisville alum. He will be a great asset as we move our circulation services forward and make further changes on how and what circulation has to offer our students.

Circulation has also picked up some new unique materials for lending. Our new 3D anatomical structures, which include a set of lungs, a heart, and kidney’s/liver will be available for student check out soon. They will be used in the library only, and we look forward to see what kind of use they will get. If popular we plan on purchasing additional anatomical structures in the future.

Thanks largely in part to the efforts of OLIS and our local IT department working with the library, patrons now have the ability to renew their materials and place holds on materials online through the OPAC system!  This has been a slow project to become realized, but the library is excited to make the process of renewing materials or requesting materials that much more automated.

In addition to patron empowerment through OPAC we have also implemented a new study room reservation system. The library has been reviewing several different options to give our students more power over reserving study spaces. In the end we decided on LibCal, a Springshare product. LibCal allows us to set up study rooms and reservation limitations that mirror our needs. It allows students to book their own study rooms in advance and gives them notifications via email to confirm times. It, as many Springshare products do, gives us an adequate amount of analytics that will aid us in future decisions on staffing, hours, and library space.

The library gallery wall hosted several exhibitions over the course of the fall semester. In October we had our annual Lee Brown Coy display with an assortment of macabre oil paintings and black & white illustrations. A perfect collection for the season.

The second exhibit was in November and displayed the works of United States veterans. Largely made up of oil and watercolor paintings, this display coincided with a gallery reception on Veterans Day where several of the artists were able to discuss with visitors their inspirations behind each piece and their experience serving in our military.

As part of our STS (Science, Technology, and Society) Symposium on campus this year, the library played a large role in the formation of a video game book club. Developed by librarian Angela Rhodes, this “book club” played through the game Transistor over the course of four weeks with regular meetings each Tuesday in the library. As with any regular book club the themes, story, and characters were discussed in detail. Participants that attended each meeting were given a raffle ticket to be entered into a drawing for Transistor merchandise that was generously donated to us by the game developer SuperGiant. This event was well received, and it is likely that the library will be hosting additional video game book clubs in the future.

This fall Morrisville completed the newest version of the Rethinking Resource Sharing STAR Checklist. After review by the Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee we were qualified as a Rethinking Resource Sharing STAR, earning the top spot of 4 STARS. It goes without saying that we could not have achieved this without our amazing library interlibrary loan specialist Marilyn Cook.

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Nov. 13, 2015 Council Meeting @ Cobleskill / Re: Campus Updates

« on: January 11, 2016, 09:10:40 AM »

Morrisville was awarded the Sheila Johnson Grant. The purpose of the grant is to encourage the reading of and inform patrons about the diversity of literature available today. By making these titles available, the Library hoped to encourage reading among our patrons and provide them with a constructive activity for their free time within a diversity focused framework.

Morrisville students got a big surprise during finals in the fall semester when the library invited therapy dogs to campus. This event ran for a couple hours on December the 8th and 10th where students could come into the library classroom and unwind from their studies with some very friendly lap dogs. The therapy dogs were a huge success with lines out the door before they even arrived. Other events in the library included our regular yearly Lee Brown Coye art exhibit during the month of October. This year’s exhibit was titled “Dance Macabre”. Multiple book displays were featured that time of the year including one for Banned Books Week and Halloween horror reads.

At the end of the semester in conjunction with the inauguration of Morrisville’s 8th president a display on the history of Morrisville was set up in our art exhibit. In addition to images and article reproductions; two poems recited during the inauguration ceremony by Alex Arruda and Devon Branca were on display in large format.

The library saw several improvements to study spaces as the semester progressed in the fall. Our first addition was a large enclosed group study with a ten foot dry erase board. It has become one of our most popular study spaces with the whiteboard being heavily utilized for planning group projects and reviewing study materials. In the same area as this study room we are also in the final planning process of adding additional computing space. There will be several divided cubicle like spaces each with its own computer and room to spread out materials. We are slated to have these installed by the end of January. In addition we also purchased several new individual study pods. These modular units each have individual desk space, power plugs, and storage for books and bags. They, just like our new group study, have become extremely popular and many students have inquired if we will be purchasing more.

There were several changes and additions to our reference services towards the end of the fall semester. First we have picked up the Ask Us 24/7 chat service in order to give our students a reference service to use remotely and during afterhours. Many students and faculty were shocked that such a service existed and were enthusiastic knowing that no matter the time of day there was now an option to speak with a librarian for research assistance. We have also started pilot testing two satellite reference services on campus. One of these was located in our CSTEP (Collegiate Science & Technology Entry Program) study hall which is on the first floor of one of the dorms. This study hall that can only be accessed by CSTEP students was our first attempt at bringing reference services to student spaces outside of the library. A second satellite reference location was set up during Sports Study Hall in Crawford Hall. Sports Study Hall is a mandatory study session for student athletes who do not have games scheduled the following day. We will be continuing these satellite reference locations into the spring semester and after assessing usage may add additional locations in the semesters to come.