People and Libraries in the News

Middletown Thrall Library Hosting "Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation." Middletown Thrall Library will be hosting this exhibition from June 22-August 5. It has been organized by the Huntington Library (San Marino, CA) and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (New York NY) in cooperation with the American Library Association's Public Programs Office. It has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Selection of host sites was a competitive process. The library was honored to be one of only 40 libraries selected from across the United States. The outstanding accompanying programs were organized by Librarian Barbara Chumard and start with an opening reception on Wednesday, June 29th at 7:00 PM. The keynote speaker will be Major David Siry, USMA, who will speak on "Lincoln and Liberty: the Evolution of an Idea." Other programs include lectures, a public showing of the movie "Glory", a Civil War encampment, and a free musical program by Molly Mason and Jay Ungar at the Paramount Theatre in Middletown. For a complete list of programs, please visit the library's website: http://www.thrall.org.

Robin Walsh, Coordinator of Information Literacy, participated in a panel discussion about librarian-faculty collaboration on Information Literacy at the South Central Regional Library Council conference: Building Bridges Between Libraries and Faculty: Information Literacy in the Curriculum on February 25, 2005 at the Broome County Public Library, Binghamton, NY.

Robin Walsh was appointed to the Ulster County Historical Society/Bevier House Museum Advisory Board by Philip G. Ryan, president of the Historical Society.

SUNY Ulster's new program in Veterinary Technology received accreditation this spring from the American Veterinary Medical Association. As the library's liaison to the sciences, Robin Walsh worked with Dr. Beth Alden, Coordinator of Veterinary Programs, to select new materials for the library collection. After a tour of the library and a demonstration of web pages and databases, the accreditation team described the library resources as "excellent" and listed them as a significant strength on their report.

Jane Hirshfield was selected as this year's guest for the eleventh annual Poetry Forum held during April, National Poetry Month. The Poetry Forum is arranged each year by Larry Berk, Director of Library & Information Services, to bring well-known and award-winning poets to the SUNY Ulster campus for intimate question and answer sessions, as well as an evening reading of their poetry.

An article An article "A theory guided approach to library services assessment" by Xi Shi, Ph.D., Associate Professor/Head Librarian and Sarah Levy, Assistant Professor/Access Services Librarian, is published in the May 2005 issue of College & Research Libraries.

The Mid-Hudson Library System (MHLS) has announced that all 70 member libraries are now operating "online." the Livingston Free Library of Columbia County, one of the smallest libraries in the Mid-Hudson Library System's five county service area came online, Wednesday, April 13, 2005.

The Information Access Team has two new reference librarians: Morgan Gwenwald and Megan Coder.

Susan Kraat, the Coordinator of Library Instruction, is the chair of the local arrangements planning committee for the SUNY Library Association 2005 annual conference, which is scheduled to take place on the campus of SUNY New Paltz, June 8-10. Conference theme is Libraries without Borders: Taking it to the Streets. Everyone is welcome to register. For information: http://lib.newpaltz.edu/sunyla/. Stephen Macaluso, the Distance Learning Librarian, and Corinne Nyquist, Interlibrary Loan Librarian, will be part of a panel presentation entitled: Distance Learning and Resource Sharing: New Technologies Mean New Opportunities. Corinne Nyquist will also present a session called: SUNYLA: Past and Present, Promise and Performance. Valerie Mittenberg, Coordinator of Reference Services, will present a poster session entitled Books and Tattoos.

The Francis U. and Mary F. Ritz Library of Dutchess Community College recently made the switch to a new automated library management system called Aleph 500. In 1999, Aleph 500 was selected to be the SUNY-wide library used system to facilitate universal borrowing and resource sharing across the 61 SUNY campuses. DCC is now running multiple library functions with Aleph, including circulation, cataloging, and the Web OPAC (public catalog). As needed, the College will be able to add the Aleph modules for acquisitions, serials, and interlibrary loan. The Aleph system is used in forty countries worldwide, and at many North American sites, including McGill University, University of Notre Dame, Harvard, and MIT. Aleph 500 is a client/server system which uses Oracle as its database management system and runs on UNIX. The server for DCC, and many other SUNY campuses, is located in Buffalo. The process of moving to Aleph began in August 2004. The migration was based on a "train the trainer" theory. A small implementation team from the Ritz Library attended 15 training sessions, learned to set up and use the system, and in turn trained the rest of the staff. The Ritz Library checked out its first book with the new Aleph system on February 16 ,2005. Aleph is the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and the book was, most appropriately, The Mystery of the Aleph, by Amir D. Aczel.

Southeastern News Online is published by SENYLRC staff.