Hi folks!
Apologies for not getting this update in sooner this semester, which was my first as a delegate. I've taken over the duties of delegate for DCC after Tina Kiernan served us for many years. Many thanks Tina!
In February this year we welcomed Anne Deutsch as our new library director. Anne joined us after many years working at SUNY New Paltz and brings a wealth of new ideas on management, info literacy instruction, future projects and a lot of enthusiasm!
In June, Tom Trinchera and Rich Kovarovic both attended the annual conference at Buffalo State Univ.
Our library has had year-round book displays on a plethora of subjects including Pride Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Summer Fiction, Juneteenth, Manifestos, Democracy & Civic Engagement, Banned Books Week and several for heritage months including Native Americans, Arab Americans, Latin Americans and many more. Library clerks Tom Marven, Remy Naumann and Orianna Santiago have been amazing in producing ideas, collecting titles and creating graphics for signs and information sheets for every display.
We’ve installed a mobile whiteboard near our entrance for student feedback and have gotten a lot of student participation. Topics included such subjects as FAFSA information, “What do you love about the Ritz Library?”, a “Print books or ebooks?” tabular poll, suggestions of favorite books with twist endings, a “Complete the story…” exercise where students were allowed to add 3-4 words to a continuing tale, the opportunity to add a small drawing and many others. Orianna Santiago gets the most accolades for contributing the majority of these ideas.
Early October saw the arrival of the Poughkeepsie Public Library district’s Rover mobile library truck come to campus. Response was quite positive with students and staff signing up for library accounts and cards.
Our staff also worked on several collaborative efforts to create a more welcoming and inclusive atmosphere for students, under the motto of “This is your library”. The effort included expectations for both staff and patrons, with new signage posted at various locations and new rules to allow for food and drink with gentle reminders of responsibility.
Tina Kiernan and Anne Deutsch worked extensively with the head of our Accommodative Services department to improve accessibility of physical spaces and electronic resources and tech. We added an OCR (optical character recog) scanner to our equipment as well as several adaptive tech items for patron use.
More will be on included in our next report while I catch up on other news items. See you at the meeting on Friday!
