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800 Troy Schenectady Rd, Suite 204
Latham, New York 12110
518-438-2500
cdlc@cdlc.org
In preparation for writing the 2021-2026 Plan of Service, in addition to our Member Satisfaction Survey and conducting Member Forums, we invited members to respond to these three questions.
Below are the responses we received
| Library Type | Decisions? | Aspirations? | What can CDLC provide? |
| Academic | Decreased funding for materials/services - likely needing to cancel subscriptions and/or services. Seeking free or more affordable options to our current services/materials. Staffing shortages. | Developing an institutional repository and associated research data management policies and services offered by library. | Collaboration software and techniques for library staff; tools for analyzing collection and database usage; Open access or OER options for academic libraries |
| Academic | Budgeting, staffing, workflow | Staying relevant as a college library | Continue the online programming and meetings |
| Academic | Prioritizing resource allocation- staff/collections/services | growing capacity to support digital scholarship, using technology to save time/resources, revamping job descriptions after retirements | hopefully the coordinated collection development money will continue, workshops, webinars |
| Academic | Staffing issues | How to remain relevant to students during covid times when many students are remotely learning. | Continued reference and bib instruction gatherings for sharing ideas are helpful. |
| Academic | These will likely be determined by budget as the pandemic continues. We will be finding ways to stretch our resources and services, which will involve greater use of electronic resources. | The addition of a digital repository. Streamlining of electronic content and discovery. | Overview classes for resource sharing. Lightning talks/demonstrations of electronic platforms from different libraries. |
| Academic | How to meet the needs of our college community with decreased staffing and budget. | Creation of an institutional repository is in the strategic plan for our college. The Library is heading this initiative. | Host interest groups and speakers, post available grants and funding opportunities, sponsor wellness activities for library workers, educate the library community about open source resources and technology |
| Academic | Budget cuts, justifying our existence | Survival, the rise of resource costs versus dwindling budgets, loss of staff w/o rehiring | Consortial buying of resources maybe - I know that's difficult because of the wide array of library types. The CE stuff is great, the community building is great. |
| Academic | Dealing with huge budget cuts, necessitating cancellation of serials in all formats, and then determining what to do with employees who no longer have jobs. | I have no idea what my library/community will face. | A bigger budget so you can provide more programming. |
| Academic | What materials to cancel? How to stretch financially? What is the library's responsibility in teaching out procedures? How to stay motivated? Locating grants to help buoy us financially? Accounting tips and tricks? | Trying to lobby to replace lost staff and resources | Copyright law updates, customer service PDs, fun stuff to help my staff blow off steam and recover from overload, etc. |
| Cultural Heritage Organization | How to set up the infrastructure for digital preservation; evaluating and improving our virtual programming, exhibits, and outreach | Deaccessioning to better implement collection policy; increasing the effectiveness of our online catalog and discovery tools | Grants for collection processing, facilitate inter-institution discussion and collaboration, guides with links to resources and information |
| Government/special library | Budget cuts, space (cleaning up the old, making plans for the new), making more of the print/historical collection available online, marketing, distance learning | Cleaning-up the physical collection, improving online access, promoting staff to proper levels for future goals, plan for new library/space | More professional development webinars would be great - I'd be interested in the following: how to scan your older collections, how to market your services/reach customers, how to change/redefine services to better fit today's environment, how to teach online, best practices for webinars, anything on library renovations, space planning. |
| Government/special library | Budget and staffing | Maintaining services and resources in light of budget cutbacks | Continued efforts toward shared databases and services subscriptions to achieve cost savings |
| Public | renovations, bonding, staffing | Expansion, increased programming and outreach | training, grants, ILL, bulk ordering of services? |
| Public | meeting goals & expectations of updated strategic plan in the changing covid/post-covid unknown future | our surveys were all over the place, but community is big - people are tired of bowling alone | 1-retraining staff to think beyond the book depository, 2-effectively using volunteers to provide programming, 3-engaging with millenials & zoomers |
| Public | Finding adequate grants to be able to provide programming to our community. | Increasing our patron base. | Webinars to train our Board of Trustees. |
| Public | How to increase number of library patrons and develop programming | Continue ILL loans and encourage patrons to use this service | Increased number of webinars related to programming for adults with disabilities. Onging training for current computer programs and updated versions, or develop a site where Internet information, related to libraries, can be easily found. |
| School | Diminishing budget and digital resources | Increasing digital access | Increasing collection development resources for digital resources specific to instructional curriculum at all age levels |
| School Library System | Keeping librarian positions and concern over cuts to funding will drive our decisions | We would love to provide more resources to our region and would also like to continue to provide relevant professional development | Continue with the interest groups, continue to make connections across the various types of libraries...there is power in collaboration. |