Essential Trustee Duties and Responsibilities

Especially for new board members, but open to all. Library board members looking for essential, baseline information to increase their effectiveness in serving on a library board will benefit from attending this session. Attendees will learn effective ways to carry out the nine essential library trustee duties and responsibilities (everything the library board does either falls within one of these duties or is done in support of them).

Comments from 2012 attendees:

- "Extremely well organized, informative and useful in providing reference material for the future. An essential introduction for a new trustee conducted in a professional and clear manner."

- "This was incredibly helpful and inspiring!"

- "I'm more confident now!"

Registration is required: http://calendar.midhudson.org 

55 Franklin St., Kingston 12401

Wednesday, June 19

4:30 - 6:45pm at Roeliff Jansen Community Library

9091 Route 22, Hillsdale NY 12529

105 Market St., Poughkeepsie NY 12601

The Reed Memorial Library in Carmel has partnered with the Wounded Warriors Project [http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/] to offer assistance in the areas of resume building, interviewing skills and using social media to network to the veterans of their community the first Saturday of each month.

This week each member library will receive a bundle of bookmarks to help your library promote downloadable audiobooks and eBooks during the summer months. The bookmarks were printed with Library Service & Technology Act (LSTA) funds in support of the New York State Summer Reading program.

Weeding Out-of-Date Bookmarks: It's always great to have promotional bookmarks and rack cards in the library for patrons. But here are three you should remove. Time to weed your bookmarks! If you have bookmarks from MHLS in your library for the following three products you will want to weed them. These three products (that every MHLS library has access to through HOMEACCESS at http://midhudson.org/databases/) have updated their offerings so much that the information on the bookmarks no longer does them justice, and is just plain wrong:

• Auto Repair (Chiltons)
• Genealogy (HeritageQuest)
• Practice Tests (Gale Testing & Education Reference Center)

If you would like to print new bookmarks to replace these, they have been updated and are available for download at http://midhudson.org/forms/material_request.htm 

Today is National Library Legislative Day and Federal Level Advocacy for Libraries Just Got Easier! Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) has announced a new website where citizens can voice their budget priorities. Senator Murray is the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Here is more information about the website from CQ: "MyBudget is designed to provide members of the public with an easy way to pass along stories, ideas, values and priorities related to the budget to Congress." Find the website at:   

http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/index.cfm/mybudget 

You are encouraged to use this platform to make sure libraries are a priority in the next budget. Here are some suggested talking points from the American Library Association:

• 84% of Americans 16 or older have been to a library or bookmobile. In the last year, 59% of Americans used library services.   
• Throughout the economic downturn, patrons have increasingly turned to the local library for information on a wide range of subjects, including job searching.   
• In one year, 30 million Americans used library connections to search and apply for jobs.   
• Over 92% of libraries provide access to job databases and online job applications.   
• Libraries provide an important link between the government and the public - when people need to research court cases, look up a fact from an Environmental Protection Agency study or file their taxes they come to the library to do it.   
• Studies show that a child's brain develops the most between birth and age three. Many of the 16,604 public libraries in the United States support parents and caregivers with early childhood literacy programs that train caregivers in how to read to children, encourage parents in engaging in their children's literacy development and are designed to help young children learn to read.   
• Support funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). LSTA funding helps libraries meet community needs, better utilize technology to provide enhanced services, reach underserved populations, and much more.

For more advocacy tools at the national level visit: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/  

JobNow Access Update: Many librarieshave found the JobNow database an important tool in helping patrons. Access from the state through the NOVELny platform has ended. But there is good news to report! As recommended by the MHLS Central Library / Collection Development Advisory Committee (and through financial consideration from the vendor Brainfuse for a negotiated price), MHLS has been able to pick up the JobNow subscription for the coming 12 months. We are in the process of getting the new URL from Brainfuse, and will update the link on the HOMEACCESS pages (http://midhudson.org/databases/) as soon as we can!