Director Briefing - February 5, 2024

It's Annual Report Season!

Kelly has been assembling the library information packet with the Annual Report numbers from the System. All that info should be ready soon. Rather than doing a live workshop this year, we will record one and send it to you within the next week or so. Then, we'll have office hours during the week of February 19 (dates/times will be set soon), where Directors can pop in and ask any questions.

You can log in and start working on your Annual Report by visiting the Collect/Connect website .

DLD has moved their deadline up this year, so we're asking libraries to submit for System review by February 27, 2024.

DLD has outlined the major changes, you can read those by clicking here.

Trustee Workshop: Roles & Responsibilities for New Trustees

Feel free to copy/paste this info to your board. This session will count towards their two hours of required training this year!

Roles & Responsibilities for New Trustees

February 12, 2024, at 5:00 PM online via Zoom

We will discuss the roles and responsibilities of Library Trustees in New York State.

• Duties of a Trustee
• Responsibilities of a Trustee
• Different tasks completed by the Board and Director

Click here to register.

Advocacy Day 2024

Wednesday is Advocacy Day! A small group of Directors and I will visit our local representatives in Albany to advocate for library funding.

I'm hoping for a reasonably positive visit since the Executive Budget has us at an increase over last year's funding (which hasn't been seen in over a decade).

The next plan in the 2024 Advocacy cycle will be to schedule visits in the Spring at legislators' local offices. Once that plan is finalized, I will invite everyone to their representative's meetings.

For now, you can take a look at NYLA's Advocacy Page for more details on 2024 funding and priority initiatives.

Hold Harmless Provision in Governor's Executive Budget

In this year's Executive Budget released by the Governor, there was a proposal that suggests an elimination of the “hold harmless” provision for school funding. If enacted, this could have a significant impact on School District Funding.

While we are sympathetic to our School District colleagues, NYLA has assured me that the change is only in the school Foundation Aid formula and does not impact the public library formula at all.

Update on PLS-NET.ORG Email Alias Deletion from Kelsy

We have begun the deletion of pls-net.org email aliases. Common distribution lists like pls-l@pls-net.org, ticket queues such as support@pls-net.org and evergreen@pls-net.org, and LIBcirc@pls-net.org aliases have already been deleted. Please use the @owwl.org equivalent going forward.

Starting March 1, we will begin deleting individual pls-net.org email aliases. That means email sent to your @pls-net.org address will be undeliverable. You will continue to receive emails sent to your @owwl.org address.

If you haven't already taken the steps outlined in the email migration checklist, now is the time! The checklist is available on OWWL Docs.

If you have any questions about the checklist or the deletion of aliases, please email support@owwl.org

OWWLDAC Follow-Up

If you missed the OWWLDAC Meeting last Friday, all the items discussed can be found on the agenda - https://docs.owwl.org/Members/OWWLDACMeetingAgendaFebruary22024.

The next meeting is scheduled for May 3, 2024 at 10:00 AM.

OWWL2Go Branding

One item that has come up several times over the past few months is the branding we use for our digital collections in OverDrive/Libby. We have been working on an updated logo, however, some libraries have expressed that the OWWL2Go branding may not be necessary.

Back when we first signed the contract with OverDrive, it was nice to have a secondary brand over the service to show ownership over a new product; now, because OverDrive has grown and now markets Libby as the go-to resource, it may be a bit confusing to patrons to have a third level of branding tied up in one service (OWWL2Go /!OverDrive/Libby).

No decisions have been made, but I am wondering if you have any thoughts on this topic. I've been investigating what other Systems and OverDrive recommend and I will add that to any comments Directors have before any final branding decisions are made. Let me know what you think.