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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Beyond Post-it Notes: Passwords, Passkeys, and more
Date: Thursday, February 26, 2026
Time: 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Trainer: Nate Stone, National Digital Inclusion Alliance
Online via Zoom
Want to know more about how to help your patrons with their logins? Join us for Beyond Post-it Notes: Passwords, Passkeys, and more, A Digital Navigators webinar.
So much Digital Navigator or tech help work is helping people reset passwords. This webinar will focus on strategies to help community members avoid having to do that, from using an analog notebook to password managers and passkeys. We’ll focus on techniques that maximize security while maintaining as much convenience as possible.
If you have questions about Password Managers, Passkeys, or what kind of system works best for your needs, please join us for this webinar.
Leadership Transitions of Key Employees
Date: Thursday, March 5, 2026
Time: 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Online via Zoom
Organizational stability and sustainability rely in part on effectively preparing for and shepherding leadership transitions for key employees, to smoothly fill critical vacancies, develop staff potential, preserve institutional knowledge, and support long-term success.
Join Kathy Parker and Kate Hall, authors of The Public Library Director’s Toolkit and long-time library directors, for a session exploring effective leadership transitions. Parker and Hall will discuss the role of staffing analyses in assessing and planning for vacancies, staff leadership development, and tools and methods for documentation of knowledge, including special considerations for small or rural institutions.
Supervisors and staff from all types of institutions—museums, archives, academic libraries, public libraries, and more—are welcome to join. The session will NOT be recorded, though slides and handouts will be made available to all who register. Ample time will be provided for Q&A. Please email amy@nnyln.org with questions.
About the presenters:
Kate Hall is the Executive Director of the Northbrook Public Library, a Library Journal 5 Star Library located in northern Illinois, after serving as a teen librarian, youth services manager, and director at various Chicagoland libraries for over 20 years. Kate graduated with her MLIS from Dominican University in 2002 and received her MBA from Marylhurst University in 2010. Kate is the recipient of the 2021 Illinois Library Association Librarian of the Year Award and has just launched Illinois Libraries Present, a new statewide joint programming cooperative.
Kathy Parker was the director of the Glenwood-Lynwood (IL) Public Library District from 2002-2018 after serving as Assistant Director at the Harvey (IL) Public Library. She has worked in public and private libraries for over 40 years and co-founded Director’s University, an intensive training program that has trained over 300 new Illinois Public Library Directors.
Join us for the next Resource Sharing SIG, in-person at Newburgh Free Library! Matthew Thorenz, the Local History Librarian at Newburgh Free Library, will join us to give a presentation on utilizing newspaper databases to search for digitized newspapers and articles.
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 library staff, and come from all library types. Registration for this event is free and open to all.
About the speaker: Matthew Thorenz is the Local History & Government Docs Librarian at Newburgh Free Library, where he oversees the library’s collection of over 5,000 items related to the history of Newburgh, New Windsor, and the Mid-Hudson Valley, including the library’s microfilm holdings of the Times Herald Record, Newburgh Evening News, and Mid Hudson Times.
Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion SIG
Date: Friday, March 27, 2026
Time: 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Location: online via Zoom
Convener: Carida Riore, Valley Cottage Library
We’re back, and we’re still talking about ways to support diversity in libraries. As long as our patrons come from different backgrounds and demographics, our job is to create programs and services that reflect the communities we serve. In this meeting, we will check in on how our efforts are going, support each other’s challenges, and celebrate each other’s joys.
As library workers, it is no longer enough to say that we are inclusive or tolerant; we need to take action to be anti-racist and to do work to dismantle systems that perpetuate the status quo. Our plans are for this group to meet regularly as a place for us to share ideas of how we can be better allies, co-workers, and humans.
The intended audience for this meeting is library workers in the Southeastern NY Library Resources Council service area. (The eight-county area of Columbia, Greene, Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Sullivan, Putnam and Rockland, NY.) All in this region are considered members or affiliate members. If you are from outside this region, you are welcome to join us. We appreciate the perspective that you might bring to our region, and hope that you understand that our conversation’s focus may be on the Hudson Valley as we think globally and act locally.
If you can join us, please register at the link below. You can catch up on the conversation by viewing the notes from previous meetings on our LibGuide.
Reference Special Interest Group
Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Time: 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Facilitator: Maggie Leung, Dominican University
Location: Online via Zoom
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: Working with neurodiverse patrons & colleagues
We will also follow up on the conversation from the January SIG:
https://libguides.senylrc.org/SIGs/20260113Reference
Book Repair Workshop
Save Your Collection—Don’t Replace, Repair! Basic Book Repair for Libraries with Marianne Hanley
Date: Wednesday, May 13
Time: 9:00 am – 3:30 pm
Location: Southeastern NY Library Resources Council
Note: Space for this workshop is limited to direct and affiliate members. We can accept only one registration per organization.
Stop throwing money away on replacements! Binding quality varies wildly, and with constant circulation, even your best books take a beating. The good news? Most damage is completely fixable—and you’ll learn how in this hands-on workshop.
Transform damaged books into circulation-ready materials while saving your budget for new acquisitions where it really counts.
In This Dynamic Workshop, You’ll Master:
✓ Essential repair tools and supplies every library needs
✓ Quick fixes for the most common types of book damage
✓ Professional techniques to reinforce hinges and prevent cover separation
✓ The art of tipping in loose pages so they stay put
✓ Complete spine replacement from start to finish
✓ Proven cleaning methods that tackle even the toughest stains
Why Attend? With repeated checkouts and daily handling, your popular titles are probably falling apart faster than your budget can replace them. These practical skills will help you keep beloved books in circulation, extend the life of your entire collection, and demonstrate excellent stewardship of library resources.
Walk away with confidence, techniques you can use immediately, and the satisfaction of giving your books a second life! Perfect for circulation staff, technical services teams, and anyone passionate about collection care.
Presenter Bio:
Marianne Hanley is the Preservation Librarian for Syracuse University Libraries, where she leads comprehensive preservation efforts that protect and extend the life of invaluable research collections. In her role, she defines preservation needs, establishes strategic goals, implements targeted programs, and manages budget allocations to ensure the long-term care of library materials.
As Principal Investigator for the NYS Conservation/Preservation Grant Program, Marianne administers annual state funding dedicated to promoting proper care and accessibility of research materials across New York. Through this program, she champions the adoption of best practices, guidelines, and technical standards in conservation and preservation work.
Marianne co-manages Syracuse University Libraries’ disaster response plan for collections and co-coordinates recovery efforts when emergencies strike—ensuring that irreplaceable materials are protected even in the most challenging circumstances.
A passionate educator, Marianne finds great fulfillment in teaching workshops on book repair and disaster preparedness, sharing her expertise with library professionals eager to strengthen their own preservation skills.
Education:
Master of Library and Information Science, Syracuse University
Bachelor of Arts, Canisius College, Buffalo, NY