President's Report June 2021
Many thanks to Carrie Fishner and her committees - this year’s conference looks very exciting – there’s lots of great programs, social events, and virtual networking opportunities – take advantage of as much as you can. Special thanks to Ebsco and other vendors who sponsor numerous aspects of the conference. This conference will be a success – but looking forward to catching up with people (in-person) at Farmingdale in 2022!
Shannon Pritting contacted Jocelyn and I about an opportunity. SUNY was recently awarded a $25,000 grant from Ebsco to be used for DEI initiatives. They want to focus on supporting more DEI professional development, and to support initiatives to review DEI for library collections, both print and electronic. They have been discussing this with ESLN as well, to handle the funds. Since SUNYLA is a great venue for creating ad hoc committees to address areas that SUNY libraries are looking to collaborate more in, they are hoping that perhaps SUNYLA could work with OLIS to coordinate in this area, with OLIS providing the funding from Ebsco, and some other in-kind support. We met and discussed possible options, including workshops through the year, and initiatives at SUNYLA 2022. A main point of our discussion was continuity and not one-time events.
During the April Delegate Enhancement Subcommittee (more under membership) meeting, the perennial issue of library professionals/librarians/SUNYLA naming surfaced. While we have debated the SUNYLA name and realize the difficulty with a change, a suggestion came up about organizing a Library Professionals Committee. I spoke to Susan Perry (OLIS) who has been in both librarian and library professional roles, for input and possible leadership of a committee.
Here’s to another wonderful year – it has been a pleasure and honor to work with all of you – SUNYLA strong is its members – your work makes SUNYLA strong!
Respectfully,
Carol Anne
