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2010 SLMS Conference
April 29 - May 1, 2010
Albany, NY
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04/22/2010 SLMS Report
02/18/2010 SLMS Report
01/21/2010 SLMS Report
12/10/2009 SLMS Report
10/14/2009 SLMS Report
SLMS Report for SLMSSENY Meeting
Livia Sabourin, Region III Coordinator
Tuesday November 18, 2008
Union Square Restaurant
Newburgh, NY
I attended the Joyce Valenza Pre-Conference on Wednesday at NYLA. I learned
a great deal and have already started to put things into practice by setting
up accounts in Twitter and Skype. I am looking to explore Pageflakes, nings,
and Voice Threads soon.
There was a SLMS Board meeting at the NYLA Conference on Wednesday November
5, 2008. The discussion at the meeting focused on fiscal responsibility and
cutting costs related to the Board. Outgoing President Marie Barron reminded
everyone on the Executive Board to watch their spending as the budget is running
out. The Proposed Budget for 2009 has some cuts, but expenses have gone up,
like mileage reimbursement and the cost of the Leadership Retreat has doubled
over the last several years. At the same time, income has not gone up much as
fees for membership and conference registration have basically remained unchanged.
There was a lot of discussion about making changes to the policy concerning
reimbursements for travel, meals and lodging when it comes to meetings as they
are a big drain on the budget. But this is a big area of contention. We know
we serve the members of SLMS and the budget for reimbursements comes from their
dues. We want to give back to the members, but it will be impossible to find
people to serve on the board if perks are not offered, especially considering
all of the work board members do. This discussion will continue via email.
The next thing that is important to report is the continuing progress with the
NYS Standards Revisions. One of our own members, Susan Polos, is on the ELA
Panel and they have met several times and are moving along nicely, in fact they
should have a draft prepared soon. First the panel reviewed the standards, and
then they moved on to the revisions. They did form a workgroup, however, for
the ELA panel following the review piece, as they realized that more hands were
needed. The CDOS Panel has just been launched. John Brock and Joanne Shawhan
said about half of their time is devoted to this work and they continue to express
to their superiors the need to have School Librarians on forthcoming Panels,
and that SLMS appreciates the transparency of the work of these Panels. The
next Standard that will be revised is Social Studies; please send in an application
to Kelly Wilson if you are interested in participating. SLMS Board member Sally
Daniels is on the committee that is evaluating the rubric that assesses School
Library Programs, so that is another thing they are working on. Another thing
that John and Joanne said was that they are looking for input on a variety of
things like how to save money on meetings by using new technologies, or issues
like reimbursable aide and expanding the library skills requirement beyond Jr.
Hi. They also want input on what data to collect to make the BEDS reports more
relevant, for example: What is the average age of the collection? How many books
are there per student? Etc. Although they presented a lot of information and
it is clear they are doing a lot for us, it was pressed upon them to prepare
a written report so the information is more organized and easier to disseminate
by SLMS Board members.
Ellen reported that the new “Check It Out” column in the New York
Teacher publication has had its first entry published and it has already made
an impact. Please consider sending Ellen a submission, they will need to have
things stockpiled for future issues into next year, and if it is not printed
in New York Teacher, it may be published in the SLMS Gram.
Although Monday the 17th is the deadline for SLMS Awards, Sara Kelly Johns said
that there is about $30,000.00 in awards available from AASL and the deadline
for those applications is in February. She would love to see a New York school
library program win the SLMPY award. She said that due to low application numbers,
there is a good chance of winning many of the awards. Sara also said that there
is a new Intellectual Freedom brochure on the AASL site under Issues, it is
important to download because 80% of challenges come from schools.
The Legislative report from Jill was full of important information about the
state of New York State’s economy and what we can expect for libraries.
We know that funding has been cut and we could see further cuts this week, so
things are bleak. You can expect losses of funding for books and some may even
face job losses as a result of the cuts to Education aid. My budget has been
frozen and all I can spend this year now is the categorical aid, a huge reduction
from what I normally spend. I’m sure many of you are in the same boat.
Despite this, there are things you can do to stave off a crisis like losing
your job or letting your collection stagnate. Jill suggests contacting your
legislator to congratulate them on the election, thank them for their past support
and ask them to restore funding to 2007/2008 levels and not to make midyear
cuts to education or further cut funding to libraries. Stress the importance
of libraries in economically depressed times to your administration, and show
that SLMS are key to student achievement. Also, make use of the fax feature
on the NYLA website to contact them with the NYLA Talking Points. Also, please
attend Library Lobby Day in March. We are a big bloc in NYLA, and our numbers
do make a difference. She also recommends contributing to the New Yorkers for
Better Libraries PAC, as it helps get info from NYLA to the Governor and the
Legislature.
Here are the NYLA priorities for this year:
2009 NYLA Budget Priorities
• Amend contracts for Excellence Initiative to allow extra funds for high
need school districts to be spent on hiring certified school librarian and purchase
library books.
• Increase Library Materials Aid from $6.25 to $7.00 per pupil for school
libraries. (portion targeted for contracts for Excellence Schools) with phased
increases over three years to $10 per pupil.(with the understanding that $17
per pupil is still the desired eventual goal) School library Media Specialists
need to make sure that they get this aid and any increases that come.
• $7.4 million in additional operating aid to bring every library system
up to 20% increase to close the gap created by inflation and years of no or
one time only increases.
• $280,000 for retroactive merger aid for school library systems.
• $5 million annually to fund statewide Internet Library (formally NOVEL)
In addition computer software aid language is being “tweaked” with
the hope that state aid ($14 per student) could be used to purchase databases.