Category Archives: Director-Home Page

Web Literacy Training is coming to our region!

Library staff are key to promoting information literacy as a vital 21^st 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!

• Tuesday, April 4^th from 1:30-4:30pm @SENYLRC
• Tuesday, June 13 from 1:30-4:30pm @MHLS Auditorium

For more information and to register: http://www.senylrc.org/WebLiteracyTraining

MHLS Facility Stewardship Webinar Series:

• March 21: Creating a Basic Facility Plan
• April 4: Introduction to the State Aid for Public Library Construction Program
• May 9: Sustainable Facilities: An Introduction

Please register online

Legislators LOVED the Real People. Real Dollars. Campaign! Each legislator was presented with a poster that showed over 70 Hudson Valley Families who had calculated their annual savings through library use. The visual message drove home that while in Albany they are talking about dollars in the millions, for legislators’ constituents this money has real impact on household budgets. THANK YOU to all participating libraries! You made a real impact! (Shown above: Senator Sue Serino with the MHLS contingent of advocates on Library Advocacy Day, March 1, 2017)

MHLS Webinar: Drafting a Basic Facility Plan
Wednesday, March 15th | 10:00 – 11:00am
A board-approved, prioritized facility plan is required to apply for the State Aid for Public Library Construction program in the Mid-Hudson Library System. This webinar, presented by MHLS Coordinator for Library Sustainability, Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, is designed to introduce a basic outline for your own facility plan that can help you keep track of on-going and long-term facility issues. Please register online for this event

Thank you Greene County Library Directors for a $5,000 donation to purchase eBooks & eAudiobooks to be shared by all 66 MHLS member libraries! Pictured above (left-right): Candace Begley, Windham; Debra Kamecke, Cairo, Regina Johnson, Hunter; Janet Dymond, Athens; Sue Ray, Catskill; Barbara Flach, Greenville; Maureen Garcia, MountainTop; and Linda Deubert, Coxsackie.

Sierra Lunchtime Webinar: MHLS Automation Coordinator Thomas O’Connell will offer his monthly lunchtime webinar of training and Q&A on Wednesday, February 22 from noon – 1:00pm. The topic will be patron data entry. The session will take place online. Seats fill up fast for this session so sign up soon! Registration is required. Log-in information for the webinar will be sent to your email address in advance of the event. Register today

Storytimes have long been a beloved staple of library programming but their design and purpose have dramatically changed in recent years. Research has demonstrated that the first five years of a child’s life are critical for brain and early literacy development.

Participants will learn about the early literacy practices, techniques and skills on how to incorporate early literacy asides into intentionally planned thematic storytimes. This workshop is intended for library staff that work with children who are birth to school entry.

Two sessions to choose from:
• Tuesday, March 7, 1:00-3:00pm, Mid-Hudson Library System Auditorium

• Wednesday, March 8, 1:00 – 3:00pm, Kingston Library

This workshop is offered as part of the Ready to Read at New York Libraries initiative developed by the New York State Education Department. This program supports the impact public libraries can have as early literacy professionals through NYS Family Literacy Funds.

In light of the Governor’s proposed cuts to library aid now is the time to contact our State legislators to help them understand why this is bad for New Yorkers. As the library director you have significant influence to inspire others to speak out against the cuts. Help connect legislators with their constituents:

• Write to them. The New York Library Association (NYLA) makes this easy through their Online Advocacy Center, they’ve even drafted a message for you! Take five minutes to send a quick message.
• Call them. Taking the time to call in the age of email and Tweets makes a big impression. Contact info for all MHLS area legislators

• Visit them. Face-to-face communication is the most effective thing we can do to help legislators understand how underfunded library aid and construction aid is. They need to hear your story, put a face with a name and get a real sense of what is going on in their district. Visit them in their local office, invite them to your library, come to Albany with us in March – any or all three of these activities will go a long way!

Writing an Effective Technology Plan, a MHLS workshop presented by Robert Drake, MHLS Technology Operations Manager on Tuesday, February 7th (after the Directors Association meeting) from 12:15-2:15pm in the MHLS Auditorium (105 Market Street, Poughkeepsie). Learn best practices for writing a multi-year technology plan that will guide library directors and trustees as decisions are made in these fast paced yet economically challenged times. This is a local presentation of the standing-room-only presentation at the 2016 New York Library Association Conference. This is a 1-hour presentation followed by a 1-hour planning assistance session. Please register for this workshop online at http://calendar.midhudson.org

2017 MHLS Directors Association Meeting Dates:

• Tuesday, February 7
• Friday, March 3
• Wednesday, April 5
• Friday, May 5
• Thursday, June 8
• Friday, July 7
• Wednesday, September 6
• Tuesday, October 3
• Thursday, November 2
• Friday, December 1

All MHLS Directors Association Meetings are held from 10:00am – 12:00pm in the MHLS Auditorium.