Roundtable for New Directors
Wednesday, April 5th | 12:30pm-2:30pm
MHLS Auditorium, Poughkeepsie, NY
Guest Speaker: Patti Haar, Director of the Patterson Library
Topic: Tips for Developing a Good Working Relationship with your Board of Trustees
Curious about how your library can access funds through the State Aid for Public Library Construction program? Join MHLS Coordinator for Library Sustainability, Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, for an introductory webinar on Tuesday, April 4th at 10:00am. During this webinar we will cover:
Please register online
We are dubbing this Phone-a-Thon week!
A double dose of library advocacy is called for as we find ourselves activated on two fronts: Library funding at both the state and national level is under fire and NOW is the time to keep the pressure on both our New York State Senators and Assemblypeople and our national representatives in Washington D.C.
1) Please call your NYS legislators and urge them to keep the negotiations for an increase to library aid alive through the end of the month! The final budget is expected on April 1.
2) The President has called for a defunding of the federal Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) which provides a large portion of the funds that enables the State Library and Division of Library Development to exist. A looming deadline of April 3. Please use the American Library Association’s Online Advocacy Center to call your representatives ASAP and tell them to #SaveIMLS!
Web Literacy Training is coming to our region!
Library staff are key to promoting information literacy as a vital 21st Century skill and helping to develop critical thinkers. In this class, we will discuss key information literacy concepts, share the teaching activities already at play in your library, and create new activities to help reinforce the concepts for your users and patrons. This training will help you meet the growing need of the diverse audience using today’s online resources.
This class will also introduce Mozilla’s Web Literacy Framework, which was designed “To help people become good citizens of the web,…[focusing] on the following goals:
1) develop more educators, advocates and community leaders who can leverage and advance the web as an open and public resource, and
2) impact policies and practices to ensure the web remains a healthy open and public resource for all.
Two dates to choose from!
For more information and to register: http://www.senylrc.org/WebLiteracyTraining
OverDrive Big Library Read, March 16th-30th
The eBook ‘Art of the Pie’ by Kate McDermott is available for every patron that wishes to read it—no holds, no wait lists. Available for download at https://mhls.overdrive.com/ By participating in the 12th worldwide Big Library Read, we are joining a global movement of passionate readers and library patrons who support the availability of eBooks at libraries, and it’s a great way to increase circulation.
The “One-House Budget Bills” are out and libraries have a fighting chance! We need to act now as these bills signal the final stretch before adoption of the state budget!
Senate
State Library Aid: +$8M ($99.6M total)
State Library Construction Aid: +$15M ($29M total)
Assembly
State Library Aid: +$4M ($95.6M total)
State Library Construction Aid: +$11M ($25M total)
(+ = over Governor’s Executive Budget)
These numbers are just proposals, and nothing is assured. Unless we convince the legislature to dig in and defend library funding, we still face the cuts proposed by Governor Cuomo. So…. NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT! Use the brand-new pre-drafted letter to voice your support for fully funding NYS Library Aid in the FY 2017-2018 Budget.
MHLS Facility Stewardship Webinar Series:
Please register online
MHLS now provides Library Card Registration Forms in a bilingual English and Spanish format. Upon request, the Mid-Hudson Library System supplies all member libraries with library card registration forms free of charge. Order Form
We just wanted to say thank you to all the great library trustees out there! We respect and admire the spirit of volunteerism among library trustees. Your time and energy helps make your community, and the world, a better place.
Due to the weather forecast we are rescheduling the MHLS Webinar: Drafting a Basic Facility Plan to Tuesday, March 21st @2:00pm.
