Dealing with Reference Questions @the Circ Desk

Dealing with Reference Questions at the Circ Desk, presented by Sue Hermans, Head, Reference and Adult Services & Coordinator, Central Library Services at the Poughkeepsie Public Library District:

- Wednesday, October 7th from 10:00am - 12:00pm
MHLS Auditorium (105 Market Street, Poughkeepsie)
- Tuesday, October 27th from 10:00am - 12:00pm
Germantown Library (31 Palatine Park Road, Germantown)

This program is designed for all staff that are asked questions by patrons. It will help you develop your ability to assist them, simplify finding the right answers and help you provide quality library service to your community.

The workshop will cover easy and effective strategies for:
- Getting to your patron's real information need
- Finding the best resources to answer the question
- Making sure your patron's gotten the information he needs
- Providing ethical, confidential reference service

Please register online at http://calendar.midhudson.org

MHLS Announcements
Going to the NYLA Conference? October 1st is the deadline to submit a letter stating your library's intent to send staff to the NYLA conference. Following the NYLA conference documentation of attendance will need to be submitted. A total of $4,000 will be divided between libraries sending people through the MHLS Incentive Program. The maximum award per library will be $500. The letter can be submitted through the delivery or electronically. Please call Doris Formby at x210 e-mail to dformby@midhudson.org if you have any questions.

MHLS Libraries
Poughkeepsie Rules! Yes they do! Poughkeepsie Public Library District won first place over 20 other teams that came together Saturday, September 12th at Roy C. Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls for the 5th annual MHLS Battle of the Books (BOB). In a nail biting round, The Mysterious Butterfield Society, last year's winners from Cold Spring, and the Poughkeepsie Rules! team battled it out as it came down to a sudden death question - winner take all. Cold Spring took second place and the Coxsackie Thrillers came in third.

Each round of competition was exciting as the 6th - 9th graders displayed their amazing knowledge of 10 titles and raced each other to buzz in first. Cheered on by close to 300 onlookers teams from libraries in Beacon, Beekman, Cairo, Clinton, Cold Spring, Coxsackie, Esopus, Fishkill, Hyde Park, Kent, Kinderhook, Marlboro, Millbrook, Plattekill, PPLD, Red Hook, Staatsburg, Stone Ridge, Tivoli, Valatie and Wappingers competed. Banners go to the 1st, 2nd & 3rd place teams for display at the library and every team member got a BOB watch for participation.

2009 BOB Sponsors: Assemblymen Timothy Gordon, Marcus Molinaro and Joel M. Miller all donated funds to this event. Other sponsors include: Mid-Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union, Town of Town of Esopus Library Foundation, Blackwood and Brower Book Store, Friends of Grinnell Library Association (Wappingers Falls), Foundation for Hudson Valley Libraries, Friends of Hyde Park Free Library, Poughkeepsie Public Library District, Friends of the Cairo Public Library and the National Bank of Coxsackie.

BOB Event Volunteers: MHLS staffer: Barbara Clapp; Our friends and neighbors from RCLS: Youth Services Coordinator, Randall Enos, Mildred Rivers and Keri Darcy from Finkelstein Memorial Library. Master of Ceremonies for the 5th year was Scott Meyer of Merritt Books in Millbrook and Red Hook with Alana Almstead, School Media Specialist from the Kinderhook school district as MC of the library games. Other volunteers who helped out this day included: Charlotte Appuzzo, Denny Evaul, Christine Lee, Andrew Linder, Mary Ann Politi, Lucy Ann Rees, Madison Ryan and Jeff Tomaseski. This event is coordinated by Christina Ryan-Linder MHLS Youth Services & Community Connections Coordinator and Kerstin Cruger, Public Service Team Assistant.

2010 Battle of the Books Organizational Meeting: Friday, October 30th from 1:00 - 3:00pm at MHLS. Libraries considering joining the Battle should attend this meeting. Contact Christina Ryan-Linder at clinder@midhudson.org with any questions.

Youth Services
Help educators get HIP! Creating a relationship with nearby schools and educators has just gotten easier, thanks to the MHLS Health Information Project (HIP). Promote the value of your library resources to the community by offering the HIP Resource Guide to your local high school and middle school health teachers, guidance counselors and PTA representatives. The guide contains a complete listing of teen-recommended Project DVDs, websites and current nonfiction book titles, all covering a wide variety of relevant teen issues. The guide may be ordered through the online MHLS Material Request Form found at midhudson.org or directly: http://midhudson.org/forms/material_request.htm. Also available on the Materials Request Form are HIP postcards. These promote the Project website which has a comprehensive list of available materials. They may be made available for distribution at community functions - again, a good way to get the word out about the many helpful material`s provided by your library.

Trustee Resources
The Fall 2009 issue of Across the Board, the quarterly newsletter for member library trustees from MHLS has been sent out to all trustees. This issue covers Trustee Education & Participation: Making the Most of Your Time on the Board. There are lots of options to learn more, from the MHLS web site, visits from the MHLS Board and staff at your local board meetings to educational sessions offered by MHLS to conferences offered in the state and nationally. There is something for everyone, regardless of your length of time on the board!

Trustees: Got Questions? Ask! The Winter 2009 edition of Across the Board will feature answers to specific questions from member library trustees. Help your peers in the Mid-Hudson Library System by suggesting a question that you are wondering about or something you wish you'd known sooner when you got on your board. Submit your questions to Rebekkah at rsmith@midhudson.org or give her a call at 845.471.6060 x239

Administration & Management
As libraries prepare for the upcoming flu season, it is important to consider both how the library provides information on flu to library users and communities AND protection of the library's environment for staff and patrons. Information for libraries on H1N1 flu is now available on the New York State Library's web site: http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/libdev/h1n1/index.html
The State Library link leads to:
- Toolkits prepared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for schools, colleges / universities, child care programs.
- A public library toolkit adapted and edited from the CDC toolkit for businesses
- New York State Education Department informational links for schools
- H1N1 web resource links for all libraries
The Communications Toolkit for Public Libraries, "Preparing for the Flu," from the New York State Library, is linked on the home page of http://midhudson.org.

Book censorship map reveals national problem: Censorship in the United States is not limited to isolated pockets of the country. A new online map of book censorship shows that no area is immune to what is a national trend. The map has just been posted on the official website of Banned Books Week (September 26 - October 3). The Google Map displays more than 120 book challenges that have occurred since 2007: http://bannedbooksweek.org/Mapofbookcensorship.html
[As seen in American Libraries Direct, 8.26.09]

"Banned Book" Resources:
- From the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association: When responding to a challenge, you will want to focus on three key points:
- Libraries provide ideas and information across the spectrum of social and political views.
- Libraries are one of our great democratic institutions. They provide freedom of choice for all people.
- Parents are responsible for supervising their own children's library use.
- This would be a good time to review the Library Bill of Rights from ALA and your "Material Reconsideration" form procedure with all staff. Don't have a form? Start from the samples found on the MHLS Sample Public Library Policies Page.
- Check out the Book Censorship Toolkit from the National Coalition Against Censorship to learn about the most frequent objections to books: http://www.ncac.org/literature/bookcensorshiptoolkit.cfm

Member Libraries are welcome to submit items of interest and job openings to the MHLS Bulletin: bulletin@midhudson.org. The MHLS Bulletin is available on line at http://midhudson.org/bulletins/main.htm.