Nassau County Library Association
Executive Board Meeting Minutes
Nassau Library System
December 11, 2015
In Attendance: Courtney Greenblatt, Ed Goldberg, Trina Reed, Laura Giunta, Mary Robinson,
Marcia L. Olsen, Catherine Barretta, Scott Steinke, Emily Trezza, Art Friedman, Dalal Fatoush,
Clare Badke, Andrea Snyder, Roseanne Dorfman, Mahnaz Tehrani, Peter Cirona, Barbara
Mikowski, Chris Marra, Vivian Ho, Mamie Eng, Jeffrey Feinsilver, Min Liu.
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by President Courtney Greenblatt at 9:40AM.
I.
II.
Review and Approval of the Previous Minutes and Notes
a. Marcia L. Olsen moved to approve the October 2015 minutes. Art Friedman
seconded the motion. The minutes were approved.
Treasurer’s Report: Ed Goldberg
a. The following are the November and December Treasurer’s Reports:
Nassau County Library Association
Treasurer's Report
November 2015
Checking Account
TD Bank
October 31, 2015
Balances
$5,661.88
Savings
TD Bank Checking Account
$40,013.75
$45,675.63
Special Funds
Intellectual Freedom/Civil Service
TD Bank Money Market
$10,456.47
NCLA Scholarship
TD Bank Money Market
$33,905.88
Continuing Education Grants
TD Bank Money Market
$8,758.97
Year to Date Income-thru October 31, 2015
$60,433.32
Year to Date Expenditures-thru October 31, 2015
$56,412.65
Respectfully submitted
Ed Goldberg
NCLA Treasurer
Nassau County Library Association
Treasurer's Report
December 2015
Checking Account
TD Bank
November 30, 2015
Balances
$3,650.86
Savings
TD Bank Checking Account
$40,015.30
$43,666.16
Special Funds
Intellectual Freedom/Civil Service
TD Bank Money Market
$10,458.19
NCLA Scholarship
TD Bank Money Market
$33,919.81
Continuing Education Grants
TD Bank Money Market
$8,760.05
Year to Date Income-thru November 30, 2015
$70,183.46
Year to Date Expenditures-thru November 30, 2015
(exclusive of $2,000 Andrew Ippolito Scholarship award and
$500 Education Grant)
$63,723.33
Respectfully submitted
Ed Goldberg
NCLA Treasurer
b. Ed Goldberg discussed NCLA’s Sales Tax Exempt status. The next step in the
process is changing the form of the organization with the IRS from 504(c) to
503(c).
c. NCLA renewed Al Coster's audit proposal for another year. The fee remains the
same.
d. Dalal Fatoush moved to receive the treasurer’s reports, Chris Marra seconded the
motion. The treasurer’s reports are received.
III.
President’s Report: Courtney Greenblatt
a. NCLA received a New York State Assembly Citation from Michelle Schimel,
Member of Assembly. The citation states: "Nassau County Library Association
whose dedicated and talented leaders have rendered remarkable and outstanding
service to our Community, and is this day recognized as it celebrates its Thirtieth
Annual Legislative Breakfast" and is dated September 25, 2015.
b. Congratulations to Dalal Fatoush, East Meadow Public Library. Dalal Fatoush
was awarded an Honorary Lifetime Membership at the Annual Dinner and
Installation of Officers.
c. The Annual Dinner and Installation of Officers was held on Thursday, November
12, 2015 at the Sterling in Bethpage. President Courtney Greenblatt
congratulated and thanked the 2015 Annual Dinner Committee, MC Ken
Bellafiore of Freeport Memorial Library, and MC of Installations, Arthur
Friedman of Nassau Community College. She also thanked sponsor Elite
Construction.
d. The Annual Dinner Committee included co-chairs Dalal Fatoush of East Meadow
Public Library, Christina Marra of Oceanside Public Library, and Barbara
Mickowski of Oceanside Public Library. Committee members included Min Liu
of the Long Island Library Resources Council, Jackie Lopez of Seaford Public
Library, Scott Steinke of Uniondale Public Library, and Ida Zaharopoulos of
Seaford Public Library.
e. President Courtney Greenblatt thanked Dalal Fatoush for bringing refreshments to
today's meeting.
f. President Courtney Greenblatt thanked the dedicated members of NCLA who
volunteered their time and expertise in 2015 as well as the 2015 Executive Board,
including Vice President/President Elect Trina Reed, Immediate Past President
Min Liu, Treasurer Ed Goldberg, Secretary Laura Giunta, Directors Peter Cirona,
Dalal Fatoush, Jeanne Lettieri, Chris Marra, Barbara Mickowski, Grace
Palmisano, and Scott Steinke, and Division Presidents Clare Badke (SSD),
Roseanne Dorfman (PRPD), Jill Kehoe (ASLD), Keith Klang (CSD), Michael
Matuszewski (MSD), Marcia Olsen (RASD), and Michelle Samuel (YASD).
g. President Courtney Greenblatt also thanked liaisons Arthur Friedman (New York
Library Association), Min Liu (Long Island Library Resources Council and
NCLA Liaison to SCLA), Cathi Nashak (Suffolk County Library Association),
Andrea Snyder (Nassau Library System), Carl Vitevich (Nassau BOCES School
Library Services), and Trina Reed (Member Library Directors).
h. President Courtney Greenblatt wished good luck to the 2016 Executive
Board, divisions, and committees.
IV.
DIVISION REPORTS
a. Academic & Special Libraries – Jillian Kehoe (Absent/No Report)
b. Children’s Services – Keith Klang (Absent)
i. Incoming CSD president Emily Trezza gave the report for CSD.
ii. CSD held a Program Swap on November 16. The Division received good
feedback and has much material to add to the NCLA website.
iii. The next CSD event is the CSD’s Breakfast and Installation of Officers,
which will be held on December 14 at the Carlyle on the Green. The
speaker for the event is Jen Calonita, author of the middle grade novel
Flunked.
c. Media Services – Michael Matuszewski (No Report)
d. Programming & Public Relations – Roseanne Dorfman
i. The division held the program PIE (Program Information Exchange) on
October 13. Over 30 people attended and the program was well-received.
ii. The division’s installation breakfast was held on December 8 and included
an introduction to Google forms.
e. Reference & Adult Services – Marcia Olsen
i. The program “New Adults, The Millennials, and Beyond”
scheduled for November 5 was cancelled, but will be
rescheduled for the new year.
ii. The last Board meeting of the year was held on Tuesday,
December 8.
f. Support Staff Division – Clare Badke
i. SSD’s Annual Roundtable was held on October 15 at NLS. 53 people
attended. CEU’s were awarded to all those who attended. There was a lot
of positive feedback and suggestions were given for future roundtables.
Everyone seemed to like the location change to NLS because they got the
opportunity to see behind the scenes and get a glimpse of the workings of
the shipping area and ALIS.
ii. Publisher Workshop II was held on November 6 at Syosset. 14 people
attended the program and CEUs were distributed to those who attended.
iii. The Support Staff board attended the NCLA Annual dinner on November
12. The division would like to thank the committee for organizing the
event, it was a wonderful evening. SSD also wants to congratulate board
member Dalal Fatoush on her induction and recognition as a lifetime
member of NCLA. Dalal is a true champion for NCLA.
iv. SSD held its Annual Luncheon and Installation of Officers on December 4
at Filomena’s in Franklin Square. The Support Staff officers for 2016 are
as follows:
1. President: Clare Badke
2. Vice President: Cathy Cincotta
3. Treasurer: Jeanette Nicoletti
4. Secretary: Ilene Reif
v. The Support Staff Division will be hosting a Paint Night event at Wine
and Design in Syosset on Friday, January 29, 2016 at 6:00-9:00PM. The
flyer will be posted shortly on the NCLA website and sent out on the list
serv. Please join us for this fun evening.
vi. The division has a tentative date for our Open House which is Thursday,
April 7 at Plainview Library. Details to follow, we will keep you posted.
vii. SSD’s first meeting of the New Year will be held on Monday, January 11
at East Meadow Library at 9:30AM.
g. Young Adult Services – Michelle Samuel (Absent)
i. Yesterday YASD held its Annual Brunch and Installation of Officers
featuring Jason Reynolds, author of When I was the Greatest, The Boy in
the Black Suit, and All American Boys.
1. After sharing his story on his path to becoming a writer, Jason
Reynolds left many of the attendees feeling inspired and motivated
to reach those teens, especially male teens, that at first glance
many Young Adult librarians think they have nothing in common
with and that they cannot relate to.
ii. YASD also introduced its 2016 Executive board:
1. Natalie Korsavidis from Farmingdale – President
2. Sharon Long from Syosset – Vice President/President Elect
3. Jennifer Dunlop from Lakeview – Treasurer
4. Heather Greco from Plainview-Old Bethpage will complete her 2
year term as Secretary,
5. Michelle Samuel – Immediate Past President.
V.
COMMITTEE REPORTS
a. Annual Dinner – Dalal Fatoush, Chris Marra, and Barbara Mickowski
i. The committee thanked everyone who attended the Annual Dinner. 115
people attended.
ii. The committee thanked Chris Marra, Min Liu, Steinke, Jackie Lopez, and
Dalal Fatoush for their work on the dinner.
iii. The committee is planning to hold the 2016 annual dinner on a Thursday
in November and at the Sterling again.
iv. The committee made $1,035 from the raffle baskets and lottery tree. $600
was earned from the raffle baskets and $435 was earned from the lottery
tree.
v. The committee thanked Dalal for donating the lottery tree and cake.
b. Archives – Stuart Schaeffer (Absent)
i. On Monday, December 7, Stuart Schaeffer and a group of library
personnel from various organizations, colleges and libraries met at the
Farmingdale Public Library to discuss the possibility of digitizing the
NCLA Archives. The following people attended the meeting:
1. Dr. Art Friedman, Professor, Nassau Community College
2. Lee Gundel, Webmaster, NCLA
3. Min Liu, Assistant Director, LILRC
4. Debbie Podolski, Director, Farmingdale Public Library
5. Trina Reed, Vice-President/President Elect, NCLA
6. Stuart Schaeffer, Chairperson, NCLA Archives
7. Dr. James Vorbach, Director, Division of Library and Information
Science, St. John’s University
ii. The main purpose of the December 7 meeting was to determine what
material from the NCLA archives would be digitized, where the
digitization project would take place, who would actually conduct the
digitization of the material, who/where would the digitized material reside
once it was completed and, if necessary, and what equipment would need
to be purchased to complete the project
iii. One of the main reasons for digitizing the collection was decided upon.
Specifically the history of NCLA was deemed to be essential to the
digitization program. With that in mind, historical organization material
like the publication ‘Odds and Bookends’ and NCLA newsletters were
recognized as being some of the first material to be digitized when the
project begins.
iv. A ‘Pilot Program’ was decided to be the way to initially begin the project
and a tentative starting date of mid-January (and running through early
May) was considered by attendees. At a later date, after evaluating the
success of the ‘Pilot Program’, the objectives for the full History of the
NCLA Digitization Project would be specified and a proposal for funding
the project developed.
v. One of the important pieces being brought to the project comes from St.
John’s University – and Dr. Jim Vorbach. St. John’s University will
supply the graduate student assistance on the project as well as the
digitization equipment.
vi. While tentative, the group thought that the digitized material from the
initial Pilot Program would reside on NLS servers. Ultimately members
of the group would like to see – if practical and logistically possible – the
whole digitized collection of the NCLA archives reside on LILRC’s Long
Island Memories project servers. Long Island Memories materials are also
accessible through New York Heritage and Digital Public Library of
America (DPLA). More information can be found at
http://www.lilrc.org/member-services/regional-digitization-program/.
c. Civil Service – Ken Bellafiore (Absent/No Report)
d. Computers and Technology Committee – James Hutter (Absent)
i. The Computers & Technology and Webpages Committees are cosponsoring a Webmasters Roundtable, which will take place on Tuesday,
December 15, 9:30AM at Westbury Library.
1. With panelists James Hartmann (Hewlett-Woodmere Public
Library), Matthew Kates (Westbury Memorial Public Library) and
James McHugh (Nassau Library System), the program will cover
these areas:
a. Discussion of current trends and new web technologies
b. Troubleshooting website issues
c. WordPress and other Content Management Systems
2. This will likely be an informal discussion and both committees are
encouraging attendees to bring their own questions, comments or
other observations regarding library websites.
3. There are currently 37 registrants for the program.
ii. On January 12, the Computers & Technology and Pop Culture
Committees are participating in a replay of our highly attended Minecraft
101 seminar from September. The panelists Jessica Breitman, Lisa Zuena,
James Hartmann and myself will be doing a webinar for members of the
Southeastern New York Library Resources Council. The panelists are so
excited to be sharing something that we feel is cutting-edge with our
counterparts from another region in New York and are very proud to be
representing both NCLA and Nassau Libraries in this event.
e. Constitution & Bylaws – Frank McKenna (Absent/No Report)
f. Continuing Education – Peter Cirona and Lee Gundel (Absent)/(No Report)
g. Directory – Art Friedman
i. Art Friedman asked for members to notify him of any changes to be made
for the directory. He also noted that the committee could use volunteers.
ii. Art Friedman will try to have the directory ready for LILC to sell to
vendors who are participating in the show.
h. Emerging Librarians – Jessica Breitman (Absent) and Vivian Ho
i. On Thursday, November 12, the committee held a Civil Service 101
workshop. Mamie Eng prepared and delivered an informative presentation
on Nassau County’s Librarian I exam. There were 34 attendees. The
committee received several requests to host a workshop on the Librarian II
exam, which the committee plans to offer in March.
ii. On Friday, January 8, we are going to host a board game night from
6:30PM-8:30PM at the Plainview-Old Bethpage Public Library. The
program is free of cost, and it’s the committee’s hope that it will allow
local librarians and library students to network with each other in an
informal environment. The committee is encouraging attendees to bring
their favorite board games as well as new or gently used children’s books,
which will be donated to a local school.
iii. The committee scheduled all of its upcoming meeting dates through June
2016. Meeting dates and locations will be made available on the NCLA
Calendar of Events and the Emerging Librarians page on the NCLA
website.
i. Finance – Jan Heinlein
i. Peter Cirona moved to approve the 2016 NCLA Budget. Min Liu
seconded the motion. The 2016 NCLA Budget was voted on and
approved.
j. Health Services – Mahnaz Tehrani
i. On Monday, December 17, the committee will be holding the program ,
“From A(norexia) to Z(its): Providing Health Information to Teens” at
Farmingdale Library. Currently, there are 13 registrants.
k. Institutional Services – Amrita Madray (Absent)
i. NCLA has purchased additional books and a collection of DVDs or
movies that are popular with teens, including several adaptations of
popular teen books, such as The Hunger Games, Divergent, Paper Towns,
and The Maze Runner.
l. Intellectual Freedom – Jeffrey Feinsilver
i. The committee met on December 9 at the Merrick Library.
ii. The committee submitted a panel proposal for LILC regarding selfcensorship among librarians.
iii. Art Friedman presented the following news items:
1. “Court Ruling Against Chicago Sheriff Proves Thuggish AntiWikiLeaks Blockade Was Unconstitutional” by Glenn Greenwald
from the December 3, 2015 issue of The Intercept
2. “Public Libraries: Archetypes for Sharing” by Ted Newcombe
from the December 2015 issue of Government Technology.
3. “Watch What You Say. The Cloud Might Be Listening” by Clive
Thompson from the November 2015 issue of Wired.
iv. The book I Am Jazz has recently been targeted for censorship because it
deals with transgender issues. In one instance, a public library held a huge
demonstration and public reading of the book when it was in danger of
being removed from the school district; the school board voted
unanimously to retain the book in the schools.
v. The NYLA Intellectual Freedom Round Table is currently looking for
ideas for the 2016 NYLA conference.
vi. The committee is planning another presentation on fair use and copyright
with NCLA member Joe Carroll.
vii. The committee’s annual essay contest will be about setting. Information
will go out in February and the contest will end April 1. The reception will
likely be held at the Levittown Library again.
m. LDA Award – Marcia Olsen
i. The flyer for LDA award nomination will be going out in January. Marcia
Olsen indicated that members should start thinking of people to nominate
for the award.
n. Legislation – Frank McKenna (Absent)
i. The New Education Act was signed into law and includes libraries.
ii. The Governor’s budget for New York State is still in preparation.
iii. Library Advocacy Day is March 2. These are the items on the agenda as
per NYLA:
1. School Library Media programs, including school librarians,
should be a funded mandate
2. Libraries should be treated as part of education
3. Publicly funded research should be made public and accessible for
free
iv. LILRC is planning on celebrating Open Access week in October.
o. Long Island Library Conference – Elaine Cummings-Young (Absent)
i. Andrea Snyder presented the LILC committee report.
ii. Registration opens on January 1.
iii. Tad Hills will be the keynote.
iv. December 31 is when program submissions are due.
v. Divisions and committees who want tables should contact Syntychia
Kendrick-Samuel as space is limited.
vi. The website for LILC is libconference.org.
p. Membership, Promotion, and Mailing – Art Friedman
ii. There are 898 members of NCLA as of this week. NCLA could possibly
still get over 900 members for 2015.
iii. Renewal forms should go out next week to members and the forms will be
updated on the website. Members can still use old form and cross out 2015
and change it to 2016.
q. Mentoring – Lucia Escobar (Absent) and Chris Marra
i. The committee is planning on scheduling Jim Ryan to do a workshop in
the new year.
r. Networking
i. Frank McKenna is planning on possibly organizing a New York Islanders
game or Mets game for NCLA in 2016.
s. Newsletter – Mamie Eng
i. The December 2015 NCLA Newsletter was delayed because of the
Thanksgiving holiday. It should be distributed next week.
ii. The Year-in-Review issue deadline is January 8.
t. Nominations – Min Liu
i. In 2016, four director positions will need to be filled in 2016.
ii. Courtney Greenblatt will be the new chair of the Nominations committee.
iii. Division presidents serve ex-officio on the committee or delegate a
division member to be a representative on the committee.
u. Outreach – Mary Robinson
i. 9 people attended the last Outreach committee sponsored event which was
a tour of the Mary Brennan center at the INN in Hempstead. The
committee received a lot of positive feedback and plans to continue
planning similar events.
ii. The committee submitted a proposal to the LILC programming committee
for a program on Deaf culture. Loretta Murray, Esq. will be the speaker
for that program if accepted.
iii. The committee is currently working on changing the structure of its
meetings. The committee is planning to meet 4 times a year, and would
like to have some sort of resource person or presentation in order to create
opportunities for individuals to earn CEUs.
iv. The committee’s next meeting will be held January 15, 2016 at
10:00AM via conference call. If anyone would like to participate contact
Mary Robinson via email and she will send out the information to join the
conference call.
v. Personnel Issues and Professional Concerns – Bobbi Benigno (Absent/No
Report)
w. Pop Culture – Valerie Acklin (Absent) and Laura Giunta
i. The Committee is thrilled to be hosting a Star Wars Screening Party on
December 20 at the Bellmore Playhouse in Bellmore.
1. Valerie Acklin of the Bellmore Memorial Library has been
heading the preparations and reports that over 200 individuals –
comprised of NCLA members, and their friends and family – will
be attending the screening.
2. Following the movie, attendees will enjoy a pizza party and have
the chance to play Star Wars games and win a Star Wars gift
basket. Registration is currently closed, due to space limitations.
ii. The NCLA Pop Culture Committee is sponsoring a program at the NewYork Historical Society which will include a guided tour of the exhibit
Superheroes in Gotham, which closes in February.
1. The tour will take place on January 23 at 1:00PM, with an arrival
time of 12:45PM.
2. The exhibit includes the batmobile from the 1966 television show,
a rare comic featuring Superman’s first appearance, costumes from
the Broadway show, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, and more.
3. The cost is $23 and includes admission into the museum, the
private guided tour, access to the 18-minute New York Story film,
and 10% off discount at the museum’s gift shop.
4. CEUs will be awarded. Registration flyers were posted on the
listserv on Wednesday and registration closes on January 11.
iii. Due to the popularity of the committee's Minecraft program in September,
the committee collaborated with the Computers and Technology
committee again and submitted a panel to cosponsor called “Minecraft
Basics” to LILC 2016 for consideration. The committee has also requested
an association table at the conference.
iv. Submissions for panel proposals for LIPopCon are due today, December
11. The committee is currently in negotiations with a speaker for the
keynote, which will be announced once it is officially confirmed. Early
bird registration begins on January 25. For more information, please visit
the conference website at lipopcon.org.
x. Promotions (No Report)
y. Recruitment & Scholarship – Jacqueline Fitts (Absent) and Trina Reed
i. The committee received 6 applications for the Andrew Ippolito
scholarship and only 1 for the Education Grant. Because of the disparity
between the number of applications received for each scholarship, the
committee is considering pooling the applications together in the future.
ii. The education grant is paid after a program, conference, event, or class is
attended during that year. The committee will consider reversing this
making it a stipend to go toward attending a future program the following
year.
z. Retirees – Bobbi Benigno (Absent/No Report)
aa. Statistics – Mamie Eng
i. Work on the next edition of Public Library Statistics will begin in January
2016.
bb. Webpage – Lee Gundel (Absent), James Hartmann (Absent), and Matthew
Kates (Absent)
i. A few developments with the web committee:
1. One, the committee has been assisting James Hutter and the
Computers and Technology Committee with a Webmaster
Roundtable which will be taking place on December 15, at
9:30AM at the Westbury Memorial Library. There seems to be a
definite call for this type of program, as so far 39 people have
registered to attend.
2. The other development this month is that Lee Gundel attended a
planning meeting on December 7 about digitizing the NCLA
archives. Lee Gundel is currently checking into whether we can
and or should host the digitization project with NLS. In addition,
Lee Gundel is going to go through any digital files I have that
might be useful to the archival project.
VI.
LIAISON REPORTS
a. Long Island Library Resources Council – Min Liu
i. The LILRC 50th Anniversary Gala will be held on the evening of April 14.
ii. The Libraries in Future conference was held November 5-6 and was a
successful event.
iii. The program “Emotional Intelligence for Effective Leadership” will be
held at Farmingdale Library on February 26.
iv. The program “Easy Gaming with Kahoot” will be held at Farmingdale
State College on February 12.
v. Two WordPress training sessions, one beginner and one intermediate, will
be held on January 22 at Farmingdale State College and is limited to 12
participants for each session.
vi. The LILRC newsletter is going digital in January and will be released 6
times a year.
vii. LILRC thanked NCLA for supporting the Libraries in Future conference.
b. Member Library Directors – Frank McKenna (No Report)
c. Nassau Library System - Andrea Snyder
i. NLS’s annual meeting will be held on Monday, December 14.
d. Nassau BOCES School Library System – Carl Vitevitch (Absent)
i. On October 29, 2015, Linda Gorman and Marsha Spiegelman from the
Nassau Community College library presented to over 90 people at the
Nassau BOCES School Library System liaison meeting. They provided
school librarians from across Nassau County with a fabulous overview of
the services that they prove their students as well as tips and ideas for
promoting college preparedness.
ii. On November 3, 2015, Renee McGrath from the Nassau Library System
and Derek Ivie from the Suffolk Cooperative Library System co-presented
2015 Best Books for School Librarians to a standing room only crowd at
the 2015 Long Island SLS Fall Conference. Attendees were very happy
with the information and resources provided to them. The Nassau BOCES
Liaisons can’t wait to see Renee again (or for the first time) at the
December 8 liaison meeting.
e. New York Library Association – Art Friedman
i. Frank McKenna is one of the candidates for Treasurer-Elect for NYLA.
ii. The 2016 NYLA Conference will be held the first week of November in
Saratoga Springs, NY.
f. Suffolk County Library Association – Cathi Nashak (Absent/No Report)
VII.
OLD BUSINESS
VIII.
NEW BUSINESS
a. Peter Cirona noted that committees and divisions should post their events and
programs on the NCLA calendar so that programs aren’t scheduled at the same
time and in competition with one another.
b. The tentative schedule for the NCLA 2016 Executive Board Meetings is as
follows:
1. January 8
2. February 12
3. March 11
4. April 1 (changed from April 8)
5. May 13
6. June 10
7. July - No Meeting
8. August - No Meeting
9. September 9
10. October 14
11. November - No meeting
12. December 9
c. Mamie Eng was thanked for taking the pictures of events for NCLA and the
newsletter for 2015.
IX.
Adjournment: Dalal moved to adjourn he meeting. Chris Marra seconded the motion.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:33AM by President Courtney Greenblatt.
Respectfully submitted,
Laura Giunta
Secretary