NEW YORK PLAN FOR LSTA FEDERAL FUNDS EFFECTIVE OCTOBER 1, 2012

Bernard A. Margolis, Assistant Commissioner for Libraries and State Librarian, is pleased to announce that the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has approved New York State’s Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) 2012-2017 Five-Year Plan. The new LSTA plan took effect on October 1, 2012.

Susan Hildreth, Director of IMLS, labeled the Plan “an excellent framework for the future” and stated that the Plan “demonstrates a commitment to embrace new service opportunities as changing information delivery services, platforms, and information policies create new challenges in providing critical materials that are the foundation for all other services.”

Each of the four goals within the new LSTA Five-Year Plan is closely linked to the recommendations in “Creating the Future: A 2020 Vision and Plan for Library Service in New York State; Recommendations of the New York State Regents Advisory Council on Libraries to the New York State Board of Regents” and to one or more of the priorities of the federal Library Services and Technology Act.

State Librarian Margolis expressed his thanks and appreciation to the many individuals and groups involved in developing the new plan. In particular, he thanked the Regents Advisory Council on Libraries LSTA Committee (Jill Hurst-Wahl, Sara Kelly Johns, Bridget Quinn-Carey and Chairperson Louise Sherby) for their leadership. He also thanked the State Library staff and other Office of Cultural Education staff who led the plan development effort, gathering suggestions and feedback from New York’s library, education and cultural communities.

The LSTA Five Year Plan, which is required by IMLS, describes potential activities that will be implemented using the federal LSTA funds provided annually to the New York State Library by IMLS and has four major goals:
1) All New Yorkers will have improved access to library resources that advance and enhance their personal, educational and working lives;
2) The New York State Library, library systems and libraries will deliver new and improved library programs that anticipate and meet New Yorkers' constantly changing needs for library services;
3) New Yorkers of all ages will perceive libraries as community learning spaces offering high-quality lifelong learning, literacy, and knowledge creation;
4) All New Yorkers will benefit from statewide programs and services of the New York State Library that effectively leverage private and public funding through collaboration and partnerships and maximize value in order to achieve goals one, two and three.

For more information on the federal LSTA program and its importance to New York State’s libraries and all New Yorkers, please visit the New York State Library’s website. Questions about New York State’s LSTA program may be directed to Mary Linda Todd, LSTA Coordinator, Division of Library Development, New York State Library at mtodd@mail.nysed.gov .

House version of Educator Jobs Bill includes funding for librarians

FROM ALA:

Thank you to everyone who called their members of Congress about the Educator Jobs Bill.

The May 22 draft of the House Supplemental Appropriations bill includes an Education Jobs Fund which specifically appropriates $23,000,000,000 to alleviate shortfalls and prevent impending layoffs of teachers, counselors, librarians, and other school personnel in order to preserve 300,000 jobs in elementary and secondary schools.

This is great news for us. Please call your representative and encourage them to vote for this supplemental appropriation.

Emily Sheketoff
Executive Director, ALA Washington Office

Message from the State Librarian -- Update #4

Please feel free to share this update and to pass it along to anyone! This June 19 update and past updates are posted on the New York State Library’s website at http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/library/about/statelibrarian.htm

Legislative Sausage: The famous quote clearly is correct. The two (2) things that one should never watch being made are sausage and law. The grinding process has at least stopped for the moment in the State Senate. The Senate has abolished all of its committees, except for the Rules Committee. Many closed door meetings are the symbol of this part of government not working. The State Assembly has however not slowed its pace of work. A new Chair, Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton (Ithaca) has
been appointed for the Library & Educational Technology Committee. We welcome her to this very important legislative/public policy position. Yesterday the Academic Research Information Act (ARIA) passed the Assembly. ARIA has been promulgated by the New York State Higher Education Initiative (NYSHEI). Though this has no funding connected with it at this stage, it serves as a future "vessel" to support database acquisition in science, technology and medicine using state economic development resources. I, of course, want the State Library to play a greater role in the database resources area and this is a good beginning. (More about this later). The ARIA legislation still requires Senate approval and the Governor’s signature.

The funding for the State Library (and the larger Office of Cultural Education which also includes the State Archives, State Museum and Public Broadcasting) is precarious. Legislation (A.6783-A/S.3640-A) to raise the fees that support the Cultural Education Fund is still in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee and was in the Senate Codes Committee. The Senate Committee is gone. Its Ranking Member Senator Dale Volker told us earlier this week that he would support the bill. The New York State Trial Lawyers Association has gone on record in opposition, but we
have now negotiated a compromise with them which should permit this legislation to move forward. There is still significant legislative opposition to raising fees of any sort but we are hopeful nonetheless.
The Cultural Education Fund is now bankrupt! The fund balance is -$400,000 and sinking. The State Division of the Budget has not granted any approvals for spending of special revenue funds since April 1st. We are just holding on. This legislation is vital. Stay tuned.

Congratulations: It is no easy feat to be selected by LIBRARY JOURNAL as Library of the Year! Kudos to the Queens Library, under the leadership of Tom Galante, and his great staff, trustees, and library patrons. You make every New Yorker proud of our library traditions with such an important honor.

Also, kudos to the three library systems in New York City for their leadership and successful advocacy in averting the proposed draconian cuts in city support for Brooklyn Public Library, The New York Public Library and the Queens Library.

Summer Reading: The 2009 New York State Summer Reading program is in full swing. ‘Be Creative @your library’ is the theme for kids and "Express Yourself@your library" is the theme for teens. With so many families facing tough economic times, we are expecting participation to exceed last year’s fantastic 1.5 million. We can all help to keep kids reading over the summer months. Check it out at www.summerreadingnys.org. New York’s goal for 2012 is 1.8 million participants. And remember that summer reading is not only for kids. Do you have a summer reading program!? Linda Fairstein has some great biblio-mysteries and pays tribute to The New York Public Library and its Andrew Mellon Director David Ferriero in her latest book, Lethal Legacy. Please tell me if you read any great books this summer that I should
put on my list. Maybe a master list of good reads selected by New York librarians is in the future.

Broadband and Federal Stimulus Funds: We are awaiting the formal release of the "Notice of Funds Availability" for the two primary federal broadband funding programs being administered by the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture. Notice is expected by the end of June. I hope that we can consider a statewide proposal to secure funds for many libraries. We are working within the State Education Department and are in discussion with the State’s Chief Information Officer Melodie
Mayberry-Stewart as well. If you have shovel or shelf-ready projects, get them ready. We were fortunate to host, with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a Broadband Summit which brought together 250 people from many parts of the state. Participants included librarians, trustees, economic development people, regulators, suppliers, public policy makers and others. You will be hearing more about this
initiative as we roll-out the results and use the great input to develop a plan to support (fund) broadband access for libraries. You can visit online at www.opportunityonline.org to see some of the Summit programs. The programs were all based on the theme: "The Magic of Broadband". The eligible libraries which participated will be considered for
matching grants to improve their broadband access to at least 1.5 mbps. We have about 85 libraries which will be eligible for funds. If you are interested in helping with this effort to enable libraries in every community across the State provide high-speed broadband connectivity for their customers, please send an email to bband@mail.nysed.gov.

Educational Technology: The State Education Department is welcoming comment on a new Educational Technology Plan. Feedback is welcomed as the Department builds-out a new Office headed by Larry Paska. Feedback is welcomed at http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/edtech/. It is my hope that all librarians and library staff from K-12 schools, colleges and universities, public libraries and special libraries will review and
comment on this plan. It is a great chance for everyone to see the interconnections of technology in the traditional pre-K to 12 learning environments with those in the lifelong learning and higher education worlds. Do not miss this chance to comment. All types of libraries and library systems have an important stake in this.

Databases: In my travels around the state over the past five months, I have begun to talk about my vision of a comprehensive information system. I have been calling this NYSCIS for the: New York State Comprehensive Information System. I have pictured some type of wonderful winged animal representing this concept of a wide array of database resources being delivered to everyone, everywhere in New York.
A target of 1,000 commercial databases is not too outrageous for us to contemplate. This, of course, would require state financial resources, as well as contributed resources from the library community. It will require some new ways of equipping those we serve with tools for access and productive use. It will require public education and it will require everyone to see the value of quality information resources being essential for public prosperity, public safety and public health. I
look forward to talking with many more people in the library community about this concept. Your ideas about how we can build on NOVELny and its success in resource delivery as the foundation for NYSCIS is welcomed. My thanks to Sandy Stone, Orchard Park Middle School Librarian; Mary Zdrojewski, School Library Media Specialist, Sinclairville Elementary School and Melissa Morton, Library Assistant,
Chautauqua Lake Central School District who along with 30 other colleagues sent me beautiful postcards expressing thanks for the NOVELny databases, especially the addition of the Grolier database. I will not embarrass everyone who writes or e-mails me by listing your names, but I do welcome and appreciate your feedback and ideas.

New York State Research Library: At 20 million items strong, the New York State Library is an amazing resource. Staff have been engaged in a work group looking at increasing hours of public service. The focus is opening on Saturdays and a staff survey has just been completed so that we can assess some of the best ways to implement this service expansion. I look forward to swinging the doors open on Saturdays very soon. If you have ideas to help us through this transition, please share them with me or Loretta Ebert, Director of the Research Library
(lebert@mail.nysed.gov).

Update: There are many more activities to share. My travels around the state have given me a chance to meet many of you, to hear your thoughts and to share some of my thoughts and observations with you. I have heard that many of you are appreciating these occasional updates and I want to assure you that it is my plan to continue these in the future. If there are issues or topics that you would like me to address please do not be shy about contacting me. And...please read a few good books this summer.

Bernard A. Margolis
State Librarian
New York State Library

The Economic Stimulus Bill: How It Could Affect You

Here's a description from About.com which is both comprehensive and comprehensible.

NYLA's 2008 Legislative Priorities

The New York Library Association urges you to contact your state legislators in support of its 2008 Legislative Priorities, which can be found at www.nyla.org under Headlines. NYLA urges you to use the Online Advocacy Center (click on the Library Advocate button) to send a fax/email in support its top four priority bills which are:

Association Libraries Opt Into State Retirement (S.7507 Farley/A.10518 Paulin) The bill would allow association public libraries that meet certain criteria to join the NYS retirement system upon approval by their board of trustees.

Dormitory Authority Bonding (S.1684 Farley/A.6256 Eddington) Bill would allow NYLA to bundle small bonding projects together for submittal to Dormitory Authority to give libraries greater access to inexpensive financing and reduce their borrowing costs. Only projects below $5 million would qualify for this program. All other library projects would still need special legislation. Status: Passed Senate

BOCES-Libraries Internet Partnerships (S.2082 Larkin/ A.6592 Gunther) Authorizes Boards of Cooperative Educational Services to enter into contracts with public libraries or library systems to provide internet access and communication services. Status: Passed Senate 3/28

Sales Tax Exemptions for Book Fairs (S.1722A Lavalle/A.3463A Cahill) Bill would exempt book fairs held by school and library organizations (PTA’s/Friends Groups) from collecting sales tax.

You can only send one letter at a time, so if you want to send letter in support of more than one issue, you need to go back to the beginning of the process.

The SKILLs Act

From the New York Library Association:

Dear Library Advocate,

The ALA Government Relations Office is asking ALA Chapters (NYLA) to reach out to the library community to urge them to contact their Congressional representatives in support of including the SKILLs Act as part of the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind legislation.

The SKILLs Act would require a highly qualified school library media specialist in every school. The House Education and Labor Committee will be considering reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind legislation starting on September 24th.

ALA is requesting that you contact your Congressional representatives to either ask them to be a co-sponsor of the SKILLs Act (there are currently no NY representatives as co-sponsors) and support its inclusion in the NCLB legislation.

Below are talking points you can use in your letter to your Congressional representatives. Visit here to email your letter to Congress.

SKILLs Act Info and Talking Points

* Requires school districts, to the extent feasible, to ensure that every school within the district employs at least one highly qualified school library media specialist in each school library;
* Defines highly qualified school library media specialists as those who have a bachelor's degree and have obtained full state certification as a school library media specialist or passed the state teacher licensing examination, with state certification in library media in such state;
* Establishes as a state goal that there be at least one highly qualified school library media specialist in every public school no later than the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year;
* Broadens the focus of training, professional development, and recruitment activities to include school library media specialists;
* Ensures that funds will serve elementary, middle, and high school students;
* Requires books and materials to be appropriate for and engage the interest of students in all grade levels and students with special learning needs, including English language learners.

Talking Points

* Multiple studies have affirmed that there is a clear link between school library media programs that are staffed by a school library media specialist and student academic achievement. Across the United States, research has shown that students in schools with good school libraries learn more, get better grades, and score higher on
standardized test scores than their peers in schools without libraries.
* Academic Librarians: School libraries are KEY to ensuring college readiness.
* Public Librarians: School library media specialists give students the skills they need to utilize your library to its fullest extent.
* Long regarded as the cornerstone of the school community, school libraries are no longer just for books. Instead, they have become sophisticated 21st century learning environments offering a full range of print and electronic resources that provide equal learning opportunities to all students, regardless of the socio-economic or education levels of the community - but only when they are staffed by school library media specialists trained to collaborate with teachers and engage students meaningfully with information that matters to them both in the classroom and in the real world.
* Only about 60 percent of our school libraries have a full-time, state-certified school library media specialist on staff.
* With limited funding and an increased focus on school performance, administrators are trying to stretch dollars and cut funds across various programs to ensure that maximum resources are dedicated to improving student academic achievement.
* Because NCLB does not highlight the direct correlation between school library media specialists and increased student academic achievement, library resource budgets are increasingly being used to mitigate the effects of budgetary shortfalls.