Program Chair/Vice President’s Annual Report 2008-2009

Fall Brown Bag Lunches:

The Eastern New York ACRL Chapter held three brown bag lunches during October, 2008 in order to offer the opportunity for members to participate over the wide geographical area represented by ENY/ACRL. Organizers of the lunches were Francesca Livermore at Colgate University, Jane Kessler at the University at Albany SUNY, and Elin O’Hara at SUNY Plattsburgh. The purpose of the gatherings was to provide an opportunity for area librarians to take a few hours out of their schedules to meet and discuss topics of relevance to the members. The gatherings built upon the Chapter’s previous success with the fall brown bag lunch concept, and the informal format provided an opportunity to network with area colleagues. Dessert and beverages were provided by the host library. This year’s theme was: “Reinventing Services: Innovations @ Your Library”. Topics discussed included 24 hour reference services, managing e-book collections, faculty-librarian relationships, different models for an information commons, and digital repositories. Attendance and comments received about this year’s brown bag lunch series indicate that this format continues to be popular with our membership.

Spring Conference:

The Program Planning Committee met on June 17, 2008 and again on November 11, 2008 at the University at Albany to plan for the brown bag lunch sessions and the spring conference. After the November meeting, remaining conference details were resolved via the committee’s e-mail listserv. This was very much a team effort.

We launched the spring conference “Exploring Access in 2009 and Beyond” with an access and discovery theme, in recognition of Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Hudson River in 1609. The conference was held at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York on Monday, May 18th, 2009. Our keynote address, “Getting our Bearings: Open Access and the Murky Waters of Scholarly Communication” was delivered by Charlotte Hess, Associate Librarian for Collections and Scholarly Communication at Syracuse University. Paul Rapp, Intellectual Property Lawyer and Adjunct Professor, Albany Law School, delivered a talk entitled “River of Tears: Copyright or Not in the Digital Age”. Cyril Oberlander, Associate Library Director, SUNY Geneseo presented, “Future of Access: Rethinking Library Service to Provide Context, Convergence, and Disambiguation”. Holly Heller-Ross, Interim Associate Dean, Library and Information Services, SUNY Plattsburgh, moderated the panel , “ Bridge to Somewhere: Connecting the Digital Spaces between Distance Learners and Library Services”. Holly’s panel members were: Jean Green, Head of Special Collections, Preservation and Archives, Binghamton University Libraries; Mila Su, Coordinator of Access Services, Feinberg Library, SUNY Plattsburgh; Dana Longley, Lead Information Resources Coordinator, Empire State College; and Holly Chambers, Distance Learning Library Services Coordinator, SUNY Potsdam Libraries. There was an enthusiastic response to the call for poster sessions. In all, thirteen poster sessions were accepted for presentation at the conference.

Brenda Hazard graciously served as the Conference Local Arrangements Chair and was ably assisted by Patricia Kaiser and other members of the HVCC library staff. Brenda and HVCC are to be commended for the many ways in which they contributed to the successful arrangements for the conference. Additionally, the Program Committee members whose ideas and effort contributed tremendously toward the success of the brown bags and conference are: Glynis Asu (Hamilton), Dung-Lan Chen (Skidmore), Yu-Hui Chen (Albany), Tasha Cooper (Syracuse), Barbara Grimes (SUNY IT), Linda Hoffman (Skidmore), Jane Kessler (U. Albany), Winnie Kutchukian (U. Albany), Francesca Livermore, (Colgate), Pat Markley (Siena), Suzanne Preate (Syracuse), Elizabeth Putnam (Skidmore), Joyce Rambo (NYLINK), Christine Rudecoff (Morrisville), and Uma Sharma (Syracuse). It’s been a great pleasure to work with such talented and dedicated people.

Respectfully Submitted,
Suzanne Turner
University at Albany