Circulate!

What a time to be alive!

As we watch debates and track Supreme Court decisions, we can reflect on what it means to be a democracy. One of the basic tenets of our political system is the right to vote to choose a candidate that best represents our interests. This right is a responsibility that allows us to shape our future. Since libraries are considered cornerstones of democracy, this is the perfect year to ensure that our communities are registered to vote and informed about candidates and legislation. Libraries can partner with National Voter Registration Day (September 17, 2024) to help connect our communities to power through voting. If you haven't yet had a chance to plan, there's still time. Reach out to your local League of Women Voters to coordinate efforts.

And some good news: The Federal Communications Commission has restored net-neutrality rules, ensuring that the internet remains a level playing field without allowing the highest bidder to block access, restrict access, or direct visitors to specific sites.

Extraordinary library workers and their devoted trustees converged to celebrate another year of excellent service during the Southern Adirondack Library System's Annual Dinner. In addition to networking, captivating speakers, and dinner, we recognized many libraries for the exemplary work they do supporting their communities.

Award winners include:

Ballston Community Public Library – Head of Youth Services Alyssa Harvey launched the Teen Book Box Program, modeled on subscription boxes. She assembled theme boxes every other month throughout 2023, containing books and theme-related items for the teens to keep. Themes included True Crime on a Dime, The Show Must Go On, and Frozen Fables. The service was promoted using the tagline, "The book club where we never meet!"

The popularity of the book boxes inspired parents to request similar services for other age groups. Altogether, sixty boxes were shared, and registration filled up fast. It was the most successful teen book club the Ballston Community Public Library offered in recent years.

Saratoga Springs Public Library—The Neurodiversity Club was a partnership with the SUNY Empire Center for Autism Advocacy. It was created for autistic and neurodivergent kids and teens in grades K-12, along with their friends and families. The club was student-directed to empower participants and provide them with an opportunity to shape meaningful experiences.

Students had the opportunity to choose from various self-directed activity stations, including crafts, games, Legos, dancing, music, and more. CAARES, or The Center for Autism Advocacy: Research, Education, and Supports, helped market the club to families, and the library marketed it to local schools and families.

As of April 2024, more than 70 people had attended the Neurodiversity Club. The success of the program encouraged growth, and the collaboration is expanding its offering to include a Teen Neurodiversity Club and a series for parents and teens called Neurodivergent in College—Navigating the Transition from High School.

Finally, an Honorable Mention goes to Clifton Park-Halfmoon, Mechanicville District, Round Lake/Malta, Stillwater, and the Waterford Public Libraries for collaborating to promote Summer Reading. They banded together to launch The Magnificent Six Challenge, encouraging patrons to visit each library to collect a stamp. Altogether, 62 patrons completed the challenge, and a random winner in each community received $250 in gift cards.

Trustee of the Year Award: We are fortunate to have devoted trustees to support and provide governance for our member libraries. This award recognizes a trustee with exemplary leadership characteristics who has initiated a service, program, or community involvement on behalf of the library.

Julia Osterhout Stone of Ballston Community Public Library garnered this award for stepping into the role of President of the Board of Trustees at a crucial time in the library's charter update process and ensuring it went smoothly.

She excelled at juggling multiple items simultaneously and keeping the rest of the Board apprised of the situation at every juncture. She routinely checked in with the Director, Rebecca Verhayden, to help navigate the complex process.

Once the legislation passed, there was a sprint to prepare for the election. Communication about the budget vote was key for the new library district. After writing multiple drafts and much editing, the library mailed a final version to tax district residents. Her unbelievable dedication ensures that the Ballston Community Public Library is sustainable.

Congratulations to our wonderful libraries and trustees!

Emma and Kevin Rogan have been running the Shutter Squad at the Crandall Library since 2019, training local kids to use cameras to document their lives and those around them.

The Stillwater Public Library is hosting a series of concerts with a rotating cast of food trucks each Wednesday. If you call and get an out of office message, you know where to find us!

Electric vehicles have a place to get charged up at the Schuylerville Public Library, following through on its commitment to sustainability outlined in it's strategic plan. The Electric Vehicle Charging Station is placed in the library's parking lot, where visitors can enjoy free WiFi as they get charged up.

And at the Saratoga Springs Public Library, visitors can charge their devices under a solar-powered bench (see below).

Some of us may have gotten over excited about the Lake Pleasant Public Library's upcoming Fort Night! We're grabbing our jammies, pillows, and heading to Hamilton County!

On April 25, 2024, Commissioner Betty A. Rosa released an important decision in an appeal filed by Moms for Liberty of Wayne County and Jacob Marchitell (petitioners) against the Clyde-Savannah School District. In this decision, Commissioner Rosa determined that petitioners’ arguments for the removal of five books from the School Library’s collection were without merit and determined that the school board of education correctly decided to retain the challenged books in its collection.

These decisions establish precedent by which future cases will be decided, so this decision should be helpful to any school or library facing book challenges. The decision provides an intellectual framework for confronting attacks on the right to read:

1. A book’s description or portrayal of human sexuality is not enough to justify its censorship.

2. The Office of the Attorney General and State Education Department have determined that denying access to diverse materials can violate State law; specifically, school boards cannot:

• “Ban books that highlight the diverse histories and perspectives of Black people;
• Us[e] a pretext of inappropriateness or lewdness to systematically remove diverse perspectives from the classroom; or
• Prohibit[] discussions related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive people… using a pretext of inappropriateness or obscenity.”

3. As a profession, librarians have a unique obligation to uphold intellectual freedom and are protected by the academic freedom to curate collections. Supporting students' intellectual diversity is an essential part of education.

Library workers, trustees and Friends can use this decision as a tool to guide their policies and responses to community groups working to restrict access to books.

Are you ready to celebrate the great work done by Friends of Libraries? Start planning now for National Friends of the Library Week from October 20-26, 2024. United for Libraries has compiled helpful resources to help promote your Friends, raise awareness, and encourage membership.

Ideas for Friends groups:

https://www.ala.org/united/events_conferences/folweek/friends

More information:

https://www.ala.org/united/events_conferences/folweek

Ursula Le Guin's home in Portland, Oregon is now a writer's residency. One writer per year will occupy the house, allowing time to work on their project and engage with the local community.

The New York Times recently ran a fantastic article about the role of Black librarians in the Harlem Renaissance and the acquisition of Arturo Schomburg's parlor library, establishing the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Midwest Tape / Hoopla plans to offer an audience or content filtering system to librarians. The system will allow librarians to filter the platform's content based on whether Midwest Tape / Hoopla believes the materials contain content some consider questionable or controversial for certain audiences. The Office of Intellectual Freedom has reached out to Midwest Tape / Hoopla to discuss our concerns about the proposal.

Midwest Tape characterizes the system as an additional audience filter that will appear on MidwestTape.com. Midwest Tape representatives told OIF that the system was developed in response to librarians' requests for a new tool to help them comply with state legislation regulating libraries' content purchasing decisions. It will give librarians options to filter materials by audience, age range, and grade level. Midwest Tape compared its system to Lexile codes and other reading level suggestions and explained that Midwest Tape / Hoopla employees will decide which books will be assigned to the audience categories.

While Midwest Tape has clarified that the Universal Content Ratings System is not intended to apply additional public-facing ratings to library materials and will not be public or available to patrons, we have ongoing concerns about utilizing ratings and categories that resemble morality-based labels and filtering systems. Libraries provide a wealth of information and viewpoints, and they protect library users' intellectual freedom by not endorsing or stigmatizing the content or views in their collections.

Applying prejudicial or stigmatizing ratings or labels on library materials challenges intellectual freedom principles and violates the Library Bill of Rights. Such filtering systems may even be unconstitutional. When a public library restricts or bars access to a book, film, video game, or other material based on its content or viewpoint, it may be deemed to be a content-based restriction on speech in violation of the library user's First Amendment rights, regardless of age.

The American Library Association upholds the right of individuals to form their own opinions about resources they choose to read, listen to, or view and believes that there are better ways to respond to individuals' concerns about materials than by applying filters and ratings to library resources. Best practices in collection development do not require libraries to utilize or apply ratings systems or to limit access based on an intended reader's age. Instead, they rely on librarians' professional judgment concerning the individual needs of the users served by the library.

To learn more about how rating and labeling systems hamper intellectual freedom and what libraries can do to protect intellectual freedom, visit the ALA's informational page on Ratings Systems and the Library Bill of Rights and the Labeling and Ratings Systems Q&A.

Author and National Book Award finalist Lauren Groff recently opened the Lynx, an independent bookstore in Gainsville, Florida, to sell challenged and banned books, as well as those written by marginalized authors.

Applications are due July 14, 2024. The grants of $10,000 will be awarded by August 31, 2024. The purpose of the grants is to establish or expand upon statewide support systems for school and library staff and administrators experiencing efforts to censor materials or services at their library. Recipients will receive training and support from ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Information about the grant and eligibility can be found here: https://www.oif.ala.org/ala-launches-intellectual-freedom-helpline-program-grant-applications-open/

This is a direct link to the application: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfcKQHCDGgRCyg3fnD1UAvHzx5Z1tDq8jkKlIgneIGp5VqBzg/viewform

Has a librarian made a difference in your life or gone above and beyond to serve your community? The I Love My Librarian Award invites library users like you to recognize the accomplishments of exceptional public, school, college, community college, or university librarians. Each year, up to 10 librarians are honored at a ceremony held in their honor and receive a $5,000 cash award.

Since the award was established in 2008, 160 librarians have received this distinguished honor. In that time, library users nationwide have shared more than 23,000 nominations detailing how librarians have gone above and beyond in their commitment to inclusivity, literacy, and digital access.

Would you like to build community relationships? Do you want to be ready for crises that may affect youth and families in your community? If so, you’ll want to consider participating in the University of Maryland's Ready NOW: Supporting Youth and Families During Crisis initiative.

In its second year, Ready NOW is integrating learnings from the first year of the initiative and expands on work in the publication Library Staff as Public Servants: A Field Guide for Preparing to Serve Communities in Times of Crisis (AKA The Field Guide). The Field Guide outlines four Essential Tasks that libraries and their staff need to embrace to serve historically marginalized youth and families successfully.

The Ready NOW project team is now recruiting library staff from across the United States to join in on the IMLS-funded next phase of the initiative. Participating library staff will benefit from the opportunity to:

• Build strategies for working with community partners in support of historically marginalized youth and families
• Gain knowledge of how to prepare, with community partners, for crisis situations
• Attend a series of participatory design training sessions to gain skills in community engagement, co-creation, iteration, and re-imagining systems and structures
• Design materials for use by others across the US working to serve their communities during emergencies

Staff from 13 libraries across the United States will be selected to work with their state library agency to participate in year two of this initiative. A $2000 stipend to use in support of learning about community and building crisis related services will be provided for selected libraries.

Project activities for selected library staff begins in September/October of 2024 and continues through the spring of 2025.

Learn more by registering here to attend an information session on July 9, 2024 (Tuesday) at 2 pm ET.

If you have any questions, contact the Ready NOW team at: readynow@umd.edu and visit the website.

Art Resources Transfer's Library Program provides free books on art and culture to public libraries, schools, and incarcerated readers nationwide.

The book catalog offers 300+ titles published by leading museums, galleries, and independent presses nationwide. Books are free and shipped free of charge. To get started, sign up through the website here.

Email: efreudenberger@sals.edu
Website: www.sals.edu
Location: 22 Whitney Place, Saratoga Springs, NY, United States
Phone: 518 584 7300
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthernAdirondackLibrarySystem