Minutes+May+13,+2008

**__Members in attendance:__** Viviane Lampach, Kathy Steves, Betty Zapolsky, Bernadine Lowery-Crute, Linda Cuff, Tom Nielsen, Beth St. John, Margaret Tice **__Office staff in attendance:__** Barbara Stripling, Elizabeth Naylor-Gutierrez, Esther McRae, Lynne Kresta Smith, Judith Schaffner NYC SLS Council By-Laws Kudos for Tween 2 Teen Middle School Grant Summer Reading ‘08 Five Year Plan of Service 2006-2011 Tom Nielsen: advance sign-up for fall conference sessions All: Review POS goal statements All: Make nominations for vice-chair to Viviane 12:00-12:30 Meet, eat and greet 12:30-12:45 News and notes, announcements 12:45-1:15 Report on year’s activities 1:15-2:00 Election for vice president and broadening membership 2:00-2:45 Goals for next year 2:45-3:00 Calendar of meetings for 2008-2009 // Lynn Kresta Smith Reports: // Spring Conferences 2008 The first of our annual Spring Library Conferences, held in each borough, took place on May 7th in Manhattan. Thursday we will be presenting in the Bronx. The focus is on reading and includes: // Elizabeth Naylor Gutierrez Reports: // Three ambitious weeks of summer professional development is planned: // Margaret Tice of NYPL Reports: // ·  1.2 million Summer Institute on Utilizing Primary Source Documents is renewed ·  Donnell Children’s Center is closing this week. Temporary locations for children’s room will open in June. Eventual location may be research library. ·  Sunday hours added to Mid-Manhattan branch ·  Collections will be relocated, not yet clear to where, keep posted ·  Part of Donnell will be open through August in air-conditioned areas ·  June 5 – Kick-off for Summer Reading ·  Cheryl Kallberg is on leave // Tom Nielsen of METRO Reports: // ·  A new METRO membership category is available, $100/year professional, $50/year student The benefits of the new membership category, “My METRO” are personalized, career oriented with discounts on workshops, small grants for individuals who can apply to be reimbursed for attending professional conferences // Judith Schaffner Reports regarding2007-2008 activities: // It was a challenging year as the regions dissolved and we struggled to communicate with our constituencies. I think communication challenges were addressed well through – ·  Fall conference ·  List Serve ·  New Librarian’s workshops, during 3 days approx 125 librarians attended ·  School visits by coordinators on request by Principals ·  Bronx Borough President who is supportive of school libraries contacted SLS ·  Best Practices List SLS coordinators visited school with Best Practices, nice to see good programs There is a PR firm re-designing a new public face for the DOE, they are migrating the DOE website including the SLS pages to a new template – another struggle Betty questioned – Is there a page on website where all Best Practices are gathered? Answer – not yet They had professional development on conducting book discussions addressing the social and emotional needs of their students There would have been more schools participating if we still had the Regional Library Representative network Barbara commented that with the DOE focusing on Middle School academic achievement, SLS filled a huge gap in Middle School social development // Esther McRae Reports on Destiny: // Betty comments that Destiny is a fine library automation system, we are committed to Destiny, but we must make demands on Follett to make the home page user-friendly. It has become cumbersome and unacceptable to have to scroll through so many schools Viviane added that we have come a long way in our automation efforts. Considering we are a very large system, we have clout and should make demands of Follett. =// Lynn Kresta Smith Reports on Library Advisory Committee (LAC) 2007-2008 //= The Library Advisory Committee strives to include representatives from elementary, middle, and high schools from every borough, SSO, District 75 and nonpublic school members of the NYCSLS. Librarians are invited to apply and members are selected based on willingness to assume a leadership role and equitable distribution among grade levels, boroughs and SSOs. These Lead Librarians are responsible for providing guidance to the NYCSLS on the needs and priorities of library teachers in New York City schools. The LAC is involved in planning, developing initiatives, providing feedback on documents and policies, and maintaining close communication between librarians in schools and the NYCSLS. Meetings for the 2007-2008 school year were held from 12:00-3:00 on: September 18, 2007 December 4, 2007 February 12, 2008 May 13, 2008 This year’s focus was on Information Fluency Benchmark Skills and Assessments and the creation of committees to address various issues facing librarians and NYCSLS. The committees and goals for this year include // Barbara Stripling Reports: // Monthly PD meetings held with campus librarians, Main focus of each PD was Action Research Projects, 3 types – Additionally meetings developed networking opportunities among campus librarians, good support for those librarians dealing with issues June celebration planned with Principals of campus libraries invited as well Grant with Syracuse yielded 40 scholarships for MLS candidates, combined with Robin Hood equals 62 total new MLS grads Currently we are writing another grant for a new cohort Grant with St. Johns for 2 cohorts of 20 MLS candidates in conjunction with public libraries - first cohort started in January 2008, second to begin in summer 2008. Looking forward to success Fall conference at Brooklyn Technical HS, November 4, 2008 Keynote: Project Look Sharp – Media Literacy Plenty of space for concurrent sessions, large auditorium, cafeteria area for vendors, brown bag lunch Viviane suggests hospitality rooms Elizabeth suggest hiring a photographer and setting up a Face Book type of record Viviane suggests contacting Brooklyn Tech’s Arista for assistance Beth suggests having advance sign-up for workshops Tom offered METRO’s help in advance sigh-up //Viviane questioned// how has the DOE regional re-organization impacted SLS Barbara answered with following stats: 500 empowerment schools are all alone There are 4 LSO’s (Learning Support Organization) those schools get support NOT supervision There are 9 PSO’s (Partnership with non-profits like Fordham or New Visions) // Viviane re: Elections: // Recommends that we postpone elections until the fall //Kathy Steves// made the following motion “I move that we suspend Article 4, Section 1B, until the Fall meeting” //Betty Zapolsky// seconded the motion Motion unanimously passed // Viviane re: 5 Year Plan of Service (POS) // Raised issue of addressing the needs of special client groups. We must find an effective way of reaching students in the following underserved communities – campus schools, special education students, English language learners, incarcerated youth Barbara requested that Council look at the 5 year POS GOALS for other goals that are not being addressed Discussion followed regarding several POS goal statements Calendar for next year: Tuesday Sept 23 NYPL location TBA by Margaret Tice Following meetings to be approved at Sept 23 meeting Tentative dates: Dec 2 Mar 3 May 12 Meeting adjourned at 3:10 pm Minutes submitted by Betty Zapolsky, Secretary
 * NYCSLS Library Advisory Council **
 * Council Meeting # 4 **
 * Date: May 13, 2008 **
 * Time: 12:00 – 3:00pm **
 * Place: Cardinal Spellman High School **
 * __ Documents at meeting: __**
 * __ Action items/Tasks assigned: __**
 * __ Agenda: __**
 * A kickoff for summer reading initiatives in partnership with the three public library systems
 * An overview of a collaborative effort between Homework NYC and the Dept. of Social Studies introducing the new Social Studies curriculum
 * A look a reading research including the use of trade books and the classroom-school library connection
 * A presentation on materials in graphic format by representatives from Diamond Comics
 * One week Out-Of-Box Tablet Training for August 4 –7
 * Two day training on I-Project and Smart Board
 * One day training on I-Project, Smart Board, Library Automation Basics, beginning NOVEL
 * Four sessions on intermediate and advanced NOVEL training
 * Joint training with Library of Congress, Teachers Center and NYPL re building lessons around primary sources
 * Aug 11-14 inviting Librarians for sessions during which the New AASL standards will be compared with our Information Fluency Continuum
 * Tween 2 Teen Grants, kudos to the 113 Middle School librarians who participated
 * Destiny is a shared catalog where schools individually purchase a license. The DOE maintains the server. In Feb 2007 there were 77 school libraries participating. As of May 2008 there are 500 school libraries participating. 900 participants projected by Feb 2009
 * Follett upgrades the software every 6 months, using the old server for test environment
 * Training sessions each month are full
 * Seems like principals are requesting library automation in elementary schools
 * **Assessment Task Force** (By the end of the 2007-2008 school year, the benchmark information skills for every grade level will be finalized and distributed to librarians, and an assessment for one benchmark skill at each grade level will be developed. An assessment wiki has been created.)
 * **Elementary** (Quality Instruction on a Cluster Schedule-Delivering high quality instruction within the confines of a cluster schedule and Talking to Your Principal-Tips for improved communication with administrators.
 * **Secondary** (Collaborating with Teachers Sharing Our Expertise-In-service Training Toolkit)
 * **Special Populations (Campus, ELL, SE)** (Meeting Special Learner Needs – How to collaborate with special services providers to differentiate instruction in the library.)
 * **Technology-Elementary** (What are librarians’ technology needs to do their jobs better?)
 * **Technology-Secondary** (What are librarians’ technology needs to do their jobs better?)
 * **Reading Literacy** (Develop a Reading Toolkit/How can we implement reading initiatives such as “8 Million Reasons to Read.” A Reading Toolkit wiki has been created.)
 * **Librarian Mentors** (A Skills Share chart is being distributed at Spring conferences. The committee suggested starting with LAC members mentoring Newly Assigned Library Teachers.)
 * Independent Reading,
 * Information Skills Assessment i.e. TRAILS test
 * Literacy