Blog Archives

Innovation in libraries is often seen as something new, difficult, technological, and expensive. We hear innovation within the story Silicon Valley has written for us – an iPhone X that many of us will never be able to afford, a driverless car that many of us would never consent to. For the purposes of this

This week each of your libraries will receive Paid Family Leave printed guidance (.pdf) on Paid Family Leave and Disability Benefits Law. While only association libraries and reading centers (who employ at least one person, including the manager) are required to comply with these laws, it is my hope that all library people will take

It has been a year. Some of the work that we thought would be given to a new hire last year is still mine (member event calendar, member website training & assistance, annual reporting). We’ve happily made that hire and she’ll begin in September. I’m glad we waited – the team we will have at

Thanks to the excellent advocacy efforts of you, your directors, community members, and local legislators, the NYS Construction Aid to Public Libraries program has increased in funding from $19 million to $24 million statewide. $625,000 is available for chartered member libraries of the Southern Tier Library System. In real terms, this year we could fund at

Can you shout from the tabletops the highest hopes of your community members? Were you asked at the grocery store what your neighbors want for their future, would you be able to answer accurately? The 21st Century innovative library isn’t innovative because it has the most iPads or virtual reality goggles – innovation is knowing

Dear librarylanders, We can’t continue to do the work of addressing the needs and facilitating the aspirations of those we serve, if we aren’t continually educating ourselves and building a culture of learning and professional development within our organizations. Learning is richest when we share our new ideas with others and hear their perspectives. This

We have a problem at the system. We want the turnaround time to be faster between the moment of delivery to STLS (either through STLS delivery or direct from a vendor) and when the library receives its material for shelving. As a member of STLS’s Division of Sustainability, one of my priorities is the ensure

Our Building is Our Face to the Community What seems like a million years ago, as a young mother without a formal education, I needed to decide if I would follow a path to librarianship or architecture. Anyone reading this knows which direction I went – still, our buildings have a special place in my

In these days before the presidential inauguration, it is easy to focus solely on the federal government, but now is when decisions in state government are being made that directly and deeply impact your communities. (This email contains a lot of embedded links – they are exactly what they say they are and most advocacy

New Year, Renewed Commitment Library Bill of Rights and the Freedom to Read “Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.” (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/statementspols/freedomreadstatement) The above quote is my favorite ever produced by the American Library Association. While not directly a part of the Library Bill of Rights, it has always served as