Southeastern NY, Library Resources Council, offers ongoing professional development opportunities. These come in the form of in-person classes, workshops, lectures, and webinars. These classes help to enrich our members’ professional experience and can be used to fulfill some requirements needed to maintain public librarian certificates.
Are you looking for information about a past event? Click here for an archive of recent Southeastern events.
Are you looking for similar events? Click here for a calendar of all Empire State Library Network events.
Southeastern welcomes people of all abilities to programs. If ASL interpreter services, captioning or audio description are needed, contact Carolyn Bennett Glauda – carolyn@senylrc.org or leave a message in the notes field to request those services when you register. Please register as soon as you know you will be attending. Requesting accommodations as early as possible is critical. Requests made at least one week in advance will help to ensure availability.
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Facilities Management SIG
Sustainable Landscaping with Wildflower Meadows
New date! Tuesday, June 24, 2025
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Sustainability, wildflowers, and resiliency are on the agenda! The Facilities Management Special Interest Group is a platform for sharing information about office organization and physical plant maintenance, also known as “other duties as assigned.”
This month, we will explore ways that a climate-smart landscaping project can enhance your building’s resiliency. Are you looking for ways to welcome pollinators to your grounds? Then join us to learn how to transform different-sized spaces with wildflowers that support pollinators. If you have a flower box on a busy main street or acres of fields in the back, this SIG is for library workers who want new ideas on how to increase their library’s sustainability.
The SIG will be hybrid, followed by a tour of Southeastern’s wildflower sites. Attendees at the in-person event will get a packet of wildflower seeds to jump start their own meadows!
Agenda (Hybrid meeting: in-person & zoom; Tour: in-person) Goal: Learn about prepping grounds for wildflower planting before getting hands-on experience on June 27.
- 2:00 pm Welcome, house-keeping
- 2:05 pm Starting a Wildflower Meadow: Practical Tips – Presentation by Ulster County Master Gardener Volunteer, Richard Kilberg
- 2:40 pm Q & A, open discussion about facilities management
- 3:00 pm Tour of Southeastern wildflower sites
Preparing a Wildflower Meadow
A Planting Event: Call for Volunteers!
Thursday, June 26, 2025
9:00 am – 11:00 am
What’s the buzz about? Southeastern is installing a meadow of native wildflowers to help the pollinators. But first, we have to prepare the ground. And that’s straight up digging in the dirt. No “bee”-ting around the bush: the more people who volunteer, the faster we’ll be finished!
We’ll start the day with a brief talk about the role of the wildflower meadow in our overall design plan and about using passive solarization to kill grass and weed seeds – a method you can use at your library or home in any size place. Then we’ll dig trenches, approx. 300 linear feet, spread out plastic and secure it in place.
Attendees will receive a packet of wildflower seeds native to the Northeast, and good vibes from doing something positive for our local ecosystem. You must be 18 or older to participate.
Why are we doing this? Our goal is to rehabilitate the landscape at Southeastern with native plants that support pollinators. The Turning the Page for Pollinators project is supported by an Ecological Restoration Grant from Partners for Climate Action.
Partners for Climate Action Website: https://www.climateactionhv.org/
Turning the Page for Pollinators website: https://libguides.senylrc.org/pollinators/main
Note: This will be an outside event with light physical activity: bending, kneeling, digging, raking, etc. We will provide bathroom access, water, and light snacks.
Reference Special Interest Group
Date: Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Time: 11:00 am – 12:30 pm
Facilitator: Lara Sibley, Goshen Public Library
Location: Southeastern NY Library Resources Council, 21 S. Elting Corners Rd., Highland, NY
The Reference Special Interest Group is open to library workers who provide reference services or want to learn more about it. The group is not limited by library type and comprises academic, special, public, school, and hospital library staff. You do not need to be a degree-holding librarian to attend. The facilitator will bring an agenda, and attendees are welcome to share their thoughts, ideas, experiences, and questions.
This month’s topic is: Promoting database selection and use in reference interactions
We will discuss how we talk about and encourage specific databases while working with patrons. To take advantage of the in-person format, we will do a group activity so that everyone can participate. The meeting is open to library workers from all types. We will discuss issues relevant to both academic and public librarians.
We will also follow up on the conversation from the April 29, 2025 SIG: https://libguides.senylrc.org/SIGs/20250429Reference
Resource Sharing SIG
This event was originally scheduled for 6/11/2025 and has been moved to 7/9/2025
Join us for the next Resource Sharing SIG, in-person at the Sojourner Truth Library at SUNY New Paltz. Our topic for this SIG will be inter-library loan policies. We will touch on some of the elements that are common in ILL policies for both library patrons and borrowing libraries. We will also have plenty of time for open discussion on other resource sharing topics.
This SIG provides a friendly space for resource sharing professionals to meet, discuss workflows, and share resources. The Resource Sharing Special Interest Group (SIG) meets to discuss issues of Interlibrary Loan, delivery, union catalogs, and other related topics. The members of the group are a mix of full-time and part-time, degreed and non-degreed librarians, and come from all library types. Registration for this event is free and open to all.
Is AI on the Test? A Symposium for Educators Who Weren’t Ready for Robots
Online via Zoom: July 11, 2025
9:30 am – 3:30 pm
Free for all ESLN members and affiliate members in NYS
The PILLARS Symposium: Preparation, Information Literacy, Libraries, Academic Resources, and 21st Century Skills for Transitioning from Secondary School to College
This is a virtual one-day symposium that will bring educators and librarians together to share knowledge on the topic of student readiness for college and beyond.
This symposium is designed to introduce educators to a wide range of teaching and learning resources for practical use in the 21st-century classroom. This year’s theme, Is AI On The Test? A Symposium for Educators Who Weren’t Ready for Robots, focuses a critical lens on Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) in the classroom, including creating policies, practical methods, evaluating AI tools, user privacy, and legal issues.