Council Meeting:

1. Council Membership - Karen Doktor from Lewiston-Porter and Mary Jane Murphy from Royalton-Hartland began their three year terms.

For informational purposes the other terms are listed below::
Barker, Marilyn Zaciewski 2005
Medina, Carol Sanford 2005
Niagara-Wheatfield, Debbie Kanipe 2005
WNYLRC, Dr. Gail Staines 2005
NCCC, Jeanne Tuohey 2005
Lyndonville, Laurie Bradley 2006
Newfane, Denny Caisse 2006
Niagara Falls, Patrick Kuciewski 2006
Nioga, Marie Bindeman 2006
North Tonawanda, Susan Smith 2006
Stella Niagara, Nancy Mastroianni 2006

Reminder - We need more people from other disciplines on the Council.

2. NIOGA and WNYLRC Announcements - The Western New York Library Resource Council Annual Meeting is on October 27th at Michael's in Hamburg and there are still some reservations available if anyone would like to attend. Nioga has a workshop "Audiovisual Services in Public Libraries" on October 13th and school librarians are invited to attend.

3. 2003-2004 Annual Report and SurveyMonkey.com - The Annual Report was reviewed. The statistics were down from last year, it is possible that because it is cumbersome to request multiple copies using the Union Catalog that could be one reason. Periodical requests are negligible compared to a few years back before full text electronic databases were so widely used. The Union List of Periodicals will be printed out this year for the few schools which still use it, but in the future it will only be available online.

Last year's evaluation was looked at and a printout of how the survey might look if it was done on SurveyMonkey.com, a free online survey software. It was decided that we would try it this year; however, it is anticipated that a few schools might have difficulty depending upon their technical configuration. A paper copy can be sent to anyone that can not automatically link to the survey, or cut and paste the link to get there.

4. SLS Budget - It is anticipated that the SLS will just get 95% of what it got last year as there was no override of the Governor's veto of the restoration of funding; however, it is still not over and although doubtful, the possibility still remains that we will get the additional five percent. At any rate, $1,079 was rolled over into operating aid from last year and that will help. O/N BOCES is supplementing the SLS budget by giving Molly some BOCES tasks. The SLS was $8,000 short for this year and would not be open without BOCES assistance. Categorical aid was also cut by 5%, and has not yet been received.

It was recently told to the library community that Republican legislative representatives were to be given discretionary funding to distribute to libraries in their region. Assemblyman Hayes, which serves Pendleton among other areas, called Molly to explain the situation and let me know how he was handling his funding. That call was appreciated as it helped to clarify the situation. An Assemblyman Nesbitt's staff member informed Molly that if the SLS had a capital project that needed funding, she could make a request to the Assemblyman.

5. Storytelling Festival - A survey was distributed to previous Festival participating school librarians to see if they still wanted to have a festival this year because of lack of funding and some of them had schedule changes. The responses were heartwarming as to how important the Storytelling Festival and coming to BOCES was to the students, and were definitely in favor of having the Festival. A suggestion was made to request the funding from Assemblyman Nesbitt for the Festival and to make sure that he and the other representatives were invited to attend. It was also suggested that it would be good if the Chief School Officers of the participating schools were also invited. A request was also made to hire a professional storyteller as was done a few years back and also revisit the rubric that shows how it relates to the Standards.

6. BEDS Data - The new BEDS data form was discussed. Some people are counting all the databases separately and some were counting all of one vendor's as one, i.e. GALE equals one and EBSCO equals one. The advice was shared to use the form as it best meets your needs.

Liaison Meeting:

1. Demonstration of the Ask Us 24/7 online reference service by Sheryl Knab. The link http://www.wnylrc.org will take you to a page which has the icon to select to go to the service. School libraries are welcome to link to the WNYLRC page which has the icon; however they can not put the actual icon on their website unless they volunteer to help out at the online reference desk. The service is an excellent way to get reference questions answered if you can not find the answer in your own library's resources. Area school librarians are encouraged to try out the service and use it with their school staff and students.

2. Interlibrary Loan Procedures will be worked on via email. Basically, we worked out a way to handle multiple copy requests and need to put together some sort of instructions that people will have to refer to. Input is sought as we have to insure that people are happy with the system and that it is not too difficult to make requests.

3. Workshops - Topic put on hold.

The next Council Meeting, December 7th, will be held at BOCES and it will be followed by a workshop presenting the VDX Interlibrary Loan System that the WNYLRC provides for area libraries.