2007 Accepted Poster Sessions

Below are details on the Poster Sessions that will be presented at the 2007 NYLA Annual Conference on Saturday, October 20, 2007.  The Poster Sessions will take place in the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center and will be available for review from 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM.

Laura Osterhout
Western New York Library Resources Council
Ask Us 24/7: Round the Clock Reference!
In 2001, the Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC) wrote a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant to bring in nationally recognized experts in the field of virtual reference to provide a broad overview of virtual reference in libraries. From a group of volunteers, 12 members formed the Virtual Reference Advisory Task Group that was charged with implementing a regional virtual reference service.  After a slow start, the participating libraries decided to switch to a 24 hours, 7 days per week service by joining the 24/7 Reference consortium in September, 2003, and Ask Us 24/7 was born.  Current participants in Ask Us 24/7 include 8 academic libraries and one public library system.  It is our hope that this service will catch on throughout New York State, as most successful virtual reference services are statewide.  WNYLRC travels throughout the Western New York region and throughout the state to give presentations about this service, demonstrate the software, and encourage other libraries and library systems to join Ask Us 24/7.

Pamela Crane
Onondaga County Public Library – Beauchamp Branch
Blackademics for Teens
For Black History Month in 2006 and 2007, Beauchamp Branch offered teens an opportunity to explore, rethink and question how Black culture and its accomplishments have been and continue to be perceived and recorded. Blackademics, a word created by Pierce Freelon is a course open to all middle and high school students in Syracuse. So far only African American students from the library’s service area have participated, but it is our goal to diversify the student population. This will enhance everyone’s experience and add to the lively discussions that already take place during each class.
Rosalina Edwards, a member of our community, invited Pierce Freelon and Sundiata Salaam graduate students at Syracuse University and Griselda Rodriguez a doctoral candidate at S.U. to be this year’s facilitators. Splendid choices.     
During the six after-school sessions, several parts of hip-hop culture were utilized as a tool to uncover the many ways in which Black people have been and continue to be mis-educated. The course explored the need to understand the various cultural bodies, such as, the media, educational institutions and churches that have the power to frame how the world is perceived. This investigation used music, poetry, journaling, discussion, films and everyone’s personal experiences to highlight these issues. The goal was to begin a healing and empowering process for today’s youth. Judging by the consistent attendance of the teens during the three weeks, the bonds created between the students and their instructors and everyone’s reluctance to end each session, they met their goal.

Barbara B. Fadel
Brighton Place
Brighton Place Community Resource Center
In 2005 Erie County faced looming debt and made drastic cuts to the funding of the public library system, resulting in the closure of 16 smaller branches.  This presentation addresses the story of one community’s innovative and proactive approach to deal with the budget crisis.  Private citizens worked together to reopen Tonawanda’s Brighton branch.  Brighton Place, now known as a community resource center, provides many of the same services as before and has had a great amount of success.
     As the Brighton Library faced closure in 2005, five local high school students petitioned to save the branch.  They cited three main points to demonstrate the significance of the Brighton branch:
 -Located within close proximity to five schools
 -Second-highest circulation rate in Tonawanda
 -Geographical location:  the three remaining branches (of an initial five) were all in the southwestern part of town, Brighton provided access for the north.
Though the library closed, the high school students, along with a group of private citizens worked together to reopen the Brighton branch.  Public access is free and the resource center now hosts a membership of over 900 people that pay a small yearly fee for borrowing and computer privileges.  The library is very active and holds various events for the public.  
Brighton Place serves as evidence that neighborhood branches play a valuable role within the smaller communities of a town.  For those without vehicle access, “hub” libraries may not always be a feasible answer to budget cuts.  The community action of the local Tonawanda citizens also serves as a model of initiative and creativity in the face of funding deficits.

Tanya Shkolnikov, Debra Eisenberg
North Shore University Hospital Medical Library
Collaboration is a Key to Success: Information Literacy for Health Care Professionals
This poster describes North Shore University Hospital Medical Library’s experience with teaching information literacy to medical residents.
The librarian teaches the first module of an eight-module course, seven of which were designed by the Department of Medicine, to instruct residents in the importance of evidence-based medicine in clinical practice.
The poster showcases the teaching methodology for the search process, from introducing evidence-based databases to evaluating search results.  Goals, objectives, and content are outlined with design and teaching techniques demonstrated. 
Each class is a collaborative effort of librarian and students to discover the most efficient ways of locating the best clinical information for specific clinical cases. The lessons, based on actual-cases, are structured to be intellectually challenging and acquired skills are transferable to residents’ future searches. 
A 23 percent increase in scores in the examinations administered by the Internal Medicine Residency Program Director, attests to the quality of the course.  Its success is due to constant measurement and analysis of the residents’ knowledge base and clinical needs.
Pre- and post-lesson questionnaires indicate a clear appreciation and highlight the importance for clinical practice the skills acquired.  This course confirms the value of the library and the librarians in clinical decision making.

Kathryn Frederick
Elmira College
Create Your Own Tech Portal in 10 Minutes or Less
Learn how to create a personalized Tech Portal to keep up with technology news, blogs, emails, bookmarks, and more. This poster will give you everything you need to create your own Tech Portal using Web 2.0 tools and concepts. Live demonstration and help setting up your portal if desired. Find out how you can get this practical application of Web 2.0 software in less than the time it takes to boil an egg!

Vikki Terrile
Brooklyn Public Library
Creating a Cultural of Reading for Every Child in Brooklyn
I will showcase the project I will have just completed for the year-long Urban Libraies Council’s Executive Leadership Institute, which is looking at ways Brooklyn Public Library can improve and expand our outreach services to children, teenagers and families experiencing homelessness in Brooklyn.  This project focuses on youth and families in family homeless shelters, juvenile detention centers, congregate foster care homes and other settings in which young people are in temporary or transitional living situations.  The goal of the project is to foster a cultural of reading for all children, and to have all Brooklyn residents recognize the importance of the library in their lives as a stable and supportive resource from birth through the senior years.
The poster will highlight events, activities and successful partnerships with city and non-profit organizations and will offer ideas on how to do this type of outreach within the all-too-common budget constraints public libraries face.  Through visuals, I will illustrate how the services public libraries can offer can help families in transition meet many of their educational and informational needs.  I believe this poster will inspire other librarians to include the often-forgotten and frequently underserved members of their communities and to examine their own beliefs about people experiencing homelessness.

Philippe Cloutier, Anna Midthun, and Megan Wianecki
Syracuse University
Does Google Book undermine public libraries?
Google Books is an online searchable database of full-text material. Google partners with libraries to scan their materials and display them on the web. When seeking a book will users go to Google Books instead of the public library? Or will Google Books help libraries serve their users more efficiently?
While Google Books seems philanthropic their motivations are profit based. Google makes money through advertising. They offer web services that display advertisements, as can be seen with Google search, Gmail, and now- Google Books. The library partners are overwhelmingly academic. Academic libraries have the most to gain and the least to lose. Their user base is normally constant and viable, mainly: students, faculty, and researchers. Google Books most drastically affects public libraries with fluctuating community patrons. Aiding Google Books could be viewed as violating the ALA Code of Ethics “VI. We do not advance private interests at the expense of library users, colleagues, or our employing institutions”.
However, digitizing material, cataloging it, and providing access to it is an expensive endeavor. Library time and money is being saved with Google’s efforts. Furthermore, most of the titles fully available in Google Books are public domain. Copyrighted material is displayed with limited/snippet views. This could push more patrons to the library looking to obtain this material. Our poster provides the basic facts of Google Books and the ethical dilemmas being raised.

Sharon L. Cosentino
University at Buffalo MLIS student
Easy Chair Desk Reference Services for International Adult Learners
International students represent an often overlooked, but vitally important part, of our community of users. Coming from a multitude of countries, these users not only enrich our lives with a diversity of world views and customs, but they also bring with them specialized needs. No where is this more apparent than at the library reference desk.
Often struggling with culture shock and language barriers, these individuals may not understand how American library services work. Not understanding the function of the reference librarian, they may be too intimidated to ask for help.
This poster session suggests some very practical ways in which librarians can introduce library resources to these individuals. Also covered are tips as to how to promote better reference desk interviews, and how to enable international students to relax and thrive in their new surroundings.
Becoming culturally competent should be the goal of all information professionals, so that no international student will be left to find his own way.

Jaclyn McKewan
D’Youville College
Enhancing ILL with Online Submission Forms and E-mail Notification
In Fall 2006 I served on a committee to enhance the Interlibrary Loan Services at D’Youville College.  Our goals were to implement two services: electronic submission of the requests through the library website, and notification of item arrival vial e-mail.  I created the forms myself using PHP.
My poster session will have two main parts: information about the forms themselves, and information about the process of developing them.  The former will include a laptop with a demonstration of the actual forms on the library website and disks/CD_ROMs with copies of the PHP code that I used to create them.  Features of the forms include an e-mail “receipt” sent to students after the request is submitted, a filter to accept D’Youville College e-mail addresses only (in keeping with school policy), and the option of passing the entire citation into the form, instead of just individual fields for title/author/etc.
To show the process that our committee use to implement these services I will include the following:  examples of other library forms that we borrowed ideas from, copies of our action plan and goals, and information about changes made after the projects were implemented.  (One question that we had not considered during the initial planning phase: whether to send e-mail notifications for items renewal status.)

Diana Wendell
Port Byron Central School District
Internet Safety
This poster session will provide information on a curriculum program that will teach participants how to keep teenagers safe when they use the Internet.  It will cover areas such as cyber-bullying, intellectual property, online predator awareness, and how to get teens involved in teaching others to be safe.
This is targeted at school librarians but would be of interest to public and academic libraries as well as anyone who has children at home.

Virginia Papandrea
Rose Memorial Library
Library – Local Business Partnerships: Establishing a Business and Career Resource Center in a Small Public Library
Business owners and job seekers in small towns are rarely able to provide for themselves the breadth and depth of information their local library can make available to them.  At the same time they often overlook the library as an information resource.  Small public libraries, especially those with limited funds, in their turn do not always make a conscious, integrated effort to develop business and career resources or to reach out to the local business community and job seekers. 
This session presents efforts to build a strong partnership with local Chambers of Commerce, BOCES, government employment offices, and other organizations to provide quality information resources to businesses and to those seeking information about jobs and careers.  A partnership-focused Business and Career Resources Center is described, with appropriately scaled collections, user education, public relations, programming, volunteer contributions, and support from external funding.  Ways are suggested to accomplish this despite limited staff, space, and budget.  A preliminary evaluation, including measurable outcomes, is presented.    
Business and career information centers in small-town public libraries can contribute to the economic health of the populace and can have positive outcomes for the library as a vital force in the community.  This effort can serve as a model for other small public libraries engaging in outreach efforts to underserved and previously overlooked populations.  

Elizabeth Dailey
Liverpool Public Library
Literacy in the Arts:  A Lifelong Learning Experience
Liverpool Public Library recently completed a two year program in which adult literacy students explored the  world of art, music, theatre and literature.  Participating students were from the pre-GED, GED and English for Speakers of Other Languages classes at OCM BOCES.  The program was made possible by a grant from the NYS Library, which seeks to help public libraries develop or expand adult literacy services in collaboration with a local literacy provider.
During the two year period,  students attended lectures and performances, viewed art exhibits and learned research skills needed to expand their knowledge about cultural activities in general and specifically in the Syracuse area.  Students attended a lecture by Pulitzer Prize Winning author, Jhumpa Lahiri after reading and discussing her novel, The Namesake.  Participants also attended peformances by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, the Syracuse Opera and Syracuse Stage theater.  Students discussed  specific performances prior to attending as well as studied the history of theater and music.  Students studied art by visiting art museums and galleries, reading about art history and creating their own artwork.
Books were selected for study purposes for each art form, and the program included  guest speakers on each topic and an introduction to the use of library databases to further research programs attended as well as any future programs students might wish to attend.   
In addition to increasing vocabulary and reading skills, program planners hoped that  participants would want to integrate cultural experiences into their lives and the lives of their families.

Cara Janowsky
New York State Library
New York State Library Digital Initiatives
The New York State Library has been digitizing New York State government documents since 1995 and making them freely available on the State Library’s web site.  This poster session will highlight recent digital initiatives directed toward selected historical materials from the New York State Library collection.
These documents, valuable for sue in historical research and for educational purposes are freely available on the State Library’s web site.  Examples of the “historical” materials that have been digitized include the statistical schedules for the 19th and early 20th century Census of New York State, Selected New York State Town and County Histories, The New York State Redbook and the Final Report of the Battlefield of Gettysburg.
Library staff are currently scanning the Papers of Sir William Johnson; Prepared for publication by the Divisions of Archives and History… using high speed scanning technology.  The Papers of Sir William Johnson were published by the University of New York from 1921 – 1965.
The poster session will highlight the materials that have been digitized as part of the Library’s Digital Initiatives project and show how to access them online.

Maribeth Krupczak  
New York State Library
NOVELNY: Helping New Yorkers Succeed
The New York Online Virtual Electronic Library (NOVELNY) databases initiative connects all New Yorkers to quality information in digital form. The Statewide Education and Information Program is a three year effort to raise the visibility of NOVELNY and demonstrate its value to the provision of excellent library service.
Co-sponsored by the New York State Library and the NOVELNY Steering Committee, the display will highlight the materials produced for the Statewide Education and Information Program.

Brenda J. Cowe
Ithaca City School District
Poem Possibilities: Using Grants to Foster Collaboration
The purpose of the Poem Possibilities Project was to expose students to the excitement of writing, publishing, and performing their original poetry for a community audience. Students in a fourth grade class worked with the school librarian, their classroom teacher, and the poet Jay Leeming, to learn about the various forms of poetry and to create their own original work for publication and performance. Students then contributed two poems to a project anthology that was published with print-on-demand technology, for school and library distribution. The project culminated with a public poetry reading and presentation of their book at The Tompkins County Public Library (TCLP) in Ithaca, NY which coincided with National Poetry Month. Books were purchased for classroom teachers, the public library, and school libraries. Grant money to support this collaboration between school libraries, classrooms, the poet, and the public library, was secured from the Ithaca Public Education Initiative Teacher Grant program. Benefits to community partners included: local collaborating poet, Jay Leeming, gained greater community exposure for his work through working directly with children, teachers, parents, and TCLP, and students were introduced to the Youth Services departments and programs at the Tompkins County Public Library, many of whom had not been there before. The poster presentation would involve photos and video from the workshops and poetry readings, display of the published poetry book, project proposal and evaluation information for the grant, and handouts directing viewers to the website for the project: http://poempossiblities.wordpress.com.

Loida Garcia-Febo
Queens Library
Queens Library Healthlink
In 2007, the American Cancer Society estimates that in the borough of Queens, 182 people will be diagnosed with cancer each week and 68 people will die from the disease each week. The Queens Library HealthLink initiative was developed to place libraries at the center of an innovative new effort designed to help medically underserved communities throughout Queens access free cancer information, early detection screenings, cancer treatment resources, and other life-saving services. 
Queens Library Healthlink was launched in January of 2007. This new initiative is a five-year, nearly $2 million dollar federally funded collaboration among Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the American Cancer Society’s Queens office, the Queens Library and the Queens Cancer Center of Queens Hospital. The Queens Library HealthLink will:  
• Build on the already strong relationships that the Queens Library has within the diverse neighborhoods it serves.
• Include 20 Queens Library community libraries that will join in the effort, serving as outlets for health outreach where they will partner and work closely with other organizations such as community agencies, religious institutions and local businesses.
• Provide links to information and health services through the American Cancer Society and at the Queens Cancer Center.
• Provide specialized staff with expertise in health and community organizing (HealthLink Specialists) to work with neighborhood residents to identify community health priorities and needs.
• Conduct surveys within the 20 participating library neighborhoods throughout the five-year project in order to measure the impact of Queens Library HealthLink programs.
The Queens Library HealthLink services will make available a Queens Health Network mobile cancer screening van that will visit community libraries; supply American Cancer Society educational programming at community libraries; provide free or low-cost cancer screening services through the New York State Healthy Living Partnership and furnish access to cancer treatment at the Queens Cancer Center regardless of ability to pay or immigration status.

Patricia Uttaro
Rochester Public Library
Safe to be Smart: Youth in the Urban Library
In the fall of 2001, the Rochester Public Library experienced a dramatic increase in children and youth visiting inner city branch libraries. The young people, ranging in age from 7 to 22, presented branch staff with both a unique opportunity and a challenge. Reductions in staffing in city branches resulted in staff being unable to cope with the sheer numbers of children and young people crowding into the library on a daily basis, yet the staff did not want to disappoint the youth and turn them away from the library. A Youth Coordinator was hired to develop programming and activities in two branches that would occupy the youth and teach them how to use library resources to their advantage.
The program immediately had an effect on the youth and the branch library neighborhoods. The Youth Coordinator and his staff formed lasting relationships with many of the youth and their families. Requests for computer usage have increased by 75% since 2002, with the branch library often being the only access to computers available to many of these children.
The Safe to be Smart Coordinator ran a series of gang intervention workshops at one branch library in 2004-05. The results have been dramatic, with a much calmer atmosphere and less gang activity in and around the branch. The program series has given neighborhood gang members a new level of respect for the library, which is now recognized as neutral ground.
The program got its name from coordinator Derrick Coley who, when asked what made his program different from those at afternoon recreation centers, the YMCA or the Boys & Girls Club, responded that the kids in the library were looking for a place where “it is safe to be smart.”
The program was extended to the Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County and to two more branch libraries in 2006. Derrick Coley continues to coordinate the program and has expanded it to include training for teens on job readiness skills, photography and other visual arts classes, creative writing, and game playing. Disruptive behavior, which was a catalyst in creating the program, has nearly disappeared inside the libraries. Safe to be Smart participants regularly assist other library patrons with computer use and homework, and have become protective about library facilities and materials. Trouble calls to the Rochester Police Department are almost non-existent at this time, with a drop of 75% over the past 12 months. The program works, and we are happy to share it at NYLA.

Diana  Wyrwa
Richmond Memorial Library
Tale for Three Counties – A “Community Reads” Program
Five years ago the twenty public libraries in Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming counties with the assistance of Genesee Valley BOCES School Library System and the Batavia Daily News began discussing the possibility of creating the equivalent of a one book/one city program for these three rural counties in Western NY. The project was and still is focused on providing a community wide shared reading experience for the people of these three Western New York counties.  Activities currently include book discussions at public libraries in the three county region, a presentation by the featured author in each of the three counties, a book review contest where readers can win a lunch with the author, and many featured articles in the Batavia Daily News including a special section which reprints the first chapter of the featured book. 
Featured authors and books have included:
2003 Peace Like a Rive by Leif Enger
2004 Northern Borders by Howard Frank Mosher
2005 In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer Fleming
2006 A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
2007 An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg 
Each year the Tale for Three Counties Council has learned new ways to enhance and enrich this program for the community.  We would like to share these learning experiences with other libraries interested in creating their own “community reads” program..  For example, in 2005, Genesee Community College became a Tale for Three Counties partner, introducing a number of new (and younger) readers to the program.  In 2006, Tale for Three Counties Council became a not for profit 501c3 organization and gained charitable organization status in NY state.  Also in 2006, a website for the program was created (www.taleforthreecounties.org)
In 2007, donation levels for local businesses were added, allowing smaller businesses such as local bookstores and coffee shops to support the program. 
How and why we expanded our program, what has remained constant, the importance of a local media partner, how we financed the program, and the many discussions concerning how to choose the right author and book will be reviewed in our poster session.

Martha Smith
Gannett-Tripp Library, Elmira College
Teaching the Teacher: Research and Information Orientation for Writing Instructors
This session documents outreach and collaboration between librarians and Freshman Writing instructors at Elmira College from 2005 to 2007.  Freshmen at EC must take two terms of Freshman Writing (FW) and write a substantial research paper during each term.  Unfortunately, many first-year students receive inadequate instruction about information resources and research techniques in high school, and thus are unprepared to cope with the demands of the FW course.  Because of library staff limitations, it falls on the writing instructors to teach their students about research and information resources during weekly one-on-one tutorial sessions.
To ensure that the FW instructors provide the best possible research and information instruction, the librarians developed an orientation session for them, in collaboration with the director of the writing program.  It includes an overview of the library’s resources, research exercises for the FW instructors, and a discussion session in which the librarians ask what research and information-related skills the FW instructors want their students to learn.  The librarians have also developed a research assignment for use in the writing program which is designed to help students define and focus their topics, find relevant print and electronic resources, and cite their sources correctly.  Students must visit the library’s Research Help Desk to have their research assignment examined and approved by a librarian.
The poster session will document the results of the collaboration, and will outline both positive outcomes and areas in need of improvement.

Dawn Pressimone
SLMS / YSS
3 Apples Award – Children’s Choice Award & Teen Choice Award
The 3 Apples Book Award has completed the first full year of its award’s cycle and the first Children’s Choice Award was a big success.  This was due to Poster Sessions, Table-Talks, and Workshops at various conferences leading up to the first nominations and voting.  We implemented the Teen Choice Award in March and did not receive as many nominations as we would have liked.  We know this was due to the lack of kick-off similar to that for the Children’s Choice Award.  We hope to have a poster session at NYLA to promote both awards, but especially the Teen Choice Award.  We would like to talk about the award and have an opportunity to obtain librarian’s input.

Kathleen Schisa
Syracuse University
WISE Online Education: Leveraging the power of the network; re-defining the global classroom.
This poster provides an overview of the Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) model of online education, including the collaborative process of cross-enrollment used by WISE to create a global network of Library and Information Science academic programs and professional organizations.  
 Producing schools offer seats in their elective online courses to students in other WISE member schools (consumers), creating diverse online classrooms where students and faculty from across the world connect. WISE facilitates this connection by providing pedagogical, administrative, and technical support to both producing and consuming schools. WISE is dedicated to creating a strong global network of Library and Information Science (LIS) academic institutions and professional organizations. Currently, 14 WISE member schools cross-enroll LIS students in a broad variety of online elective courses.
  In summer 2006, the WISE+ initiative was developed, allowing member schools to partner with library associations to offer courses supported by professionals who are experts in their field. WISE+ explores the benefits of collaboration not only within the academic environment, but also within the international brain-trust of working librarians.
 The poster highlights the benefits of collaboration and the importance of dedication to excellence in online education at the institutional and faculty level. A timeline of the development of WISE and best practices in online education identified by the consortium are also presented.

Melissa Wasilewski, Scott Jarzombek, S. Rebecca Lubin
Albany Public Library
Youth Programming 2.0
Albany Public Library Branch Librarians relate their experiences using technology with youth.  Programs discussed include use of the following technologies:
• Picnick
• PS2 
• YouTube
• Myspace
• Google Maps
• Microsoft Photo Editor
• FrontPage
• Blogger
Poster session will include descriptions of programs, photos, laptop demonstrations, and tip sheets for the use of particular technologies with young patrons.