Below and attached.
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SUNYLA President’s Report
November 16, 2011
Things have felt hectic since our September meeting. I don’t know if they really were or if I’m just ready for Thanksgiving Break. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been up to SUNYLA-wise:
Various things with the SUNY Council of Library Directors (SCLD).
* SCLD Fall Meeting Oct. 5-6 in Utica. As anticipated, strategic plan implementation, the content fee proposal, and the future of NYSHEI were discussed quite a lot. We did break out sessions on various strategic plan issues which led to the formation of several taskforces. Different approaches to a possible content fee were debated and one of those taskforces is working on it. The directors present were mostly in favor of NYSHEI continuing but had questions as to what its purpose should be going forward. SCLD passed a resolution asking the NYSHEI board to reassess their goals. Also at the fall meeting-- the SUNYOne final report was submitted and SCLD endorsed establishing a system-wide program based on the pilot. The Shared Collections taskforce has been charged with looking at ways to make that happen, with the SUNYConnect Finance Committee looking at the money side.
* SCLD Exec Board conference call Oct. 26. In addition to follow-up discussion of the fall meeting there was also discussion of the 1st draft of the Regents Advisory Council’s new plan. Everyone was please that academic libraries actually got more than a passing reference this time. In LAND news, it was also reported that the 3Rs are working on getting an RFP out for delivery service to replace current model.
* SUNYConnect Coordinating Committee conference call Oct. 31. The main thing from this first SCC ‘meeting’ was that we approved going forward with the Emerging Library Services program that CPD & OLIS have been working on. During the discussion, Mary Donohue (SCLD Chair) asked if we could use SUNYLA’s ad hoc Continuing Education group that Logan is chairing as the starting point for developing the meat of the program and bring in some SCLD people so it would be a joint effort. Logan and I were both in on that call and thought that was a good approach. I mentioned that Logan had asked me to get him a co-chair which prompted a suggestion that we use someone from SCLD in that role. Again, Logan and I both liked the idea.
* Recruiting SUNYLA people to work on SCLD taskforces. Most of those taskforces that were created at the fall meeting will include non-directors and Mary asked me to invite participation via the SUNYLA listserv. At the time I’m typing this, more than a dozen people have responded. (Let’s hear it for getting input from the people that turn ideas into reality!)
Attended the NYLA Conference Nov. 4 in Saratoga Springs. My SUNYLA mug (logo facing out) was never far from my hand all day long. I made a point of talking to several vendors (I actually did have an interest in their products, I’m not that wily) and asking casually if I’d be seeing them at the SUNYLA conference in June. Also talked to librarians from all over about how great we are. I don’t know if my goal of strengthening the connection between SUNYLA and NYLA was achieved but I hope so.
Response to RAC. Thanks to some great input from the rest of the Council, I think we are submitting a well-stated, targeted set of suggestions to the Regents Advisory Council on Libraries. (Assuming it gets approved which I’m sure it will.) I hope that when the revised draft comes out we’ll find that they’ve given due weight to our ideas. If not, we’ll let them know about it when the next comment period opens (in February I learned while at NYLA).
At our September meeting, Mark McBride (SUNYLA’s liaison to FACT2) said that the head of that group would like to come to one of our meetings. I invited her a couple of weeks ago but haven’t heard back as yet.
Here’s what on my upcoming schedule so far:
* SCLD Executive Board meeting Dec. 7 in Albany
* NYSHEI Summit on Advocacy for Academic and Research Libraries Dec. 8 in Albany
* SUNYLA Council meeting in March (Albany area, date & location TBD)
* SCLD Spring Conference April 18-20 in Cooperstown
ACTION ITEM FOR THE MEETING:
* Deciding the date and location for March meeting. I’m debating between March 15 at UAlbany (the day before the 3Ts conference at the same location) and March 23 at either UAlbany or another site in the Albany area. I’d like to get the opinion of the Council.
Respectfully submitted,
April C. Davies
