2008 SLSA Award Page

2008 SLSA Award Festivities
Recipient: Linda Fox
Captial Region BOCES SLS

Elizabeth's Speech Linda's Speech Reception Pictures SLSA Homepage

Each year the School Library Systems Association of New York State recognizes a School Library System Director for providing an outstanding contribution to school librarianship and to the School Library Systems Association. The areas considered for the award are: professional leadership, professional service, information sharing, collaboration, quality programs and creative service.

Elizabeth's Speech

2008 SLSA Distinguished Service Award
Presentation Remarks: Elizabeth Naylor-Gutiérrez, Director, New York City School Library System
SLMS Conference, Doubletree Hotel, Tarrytown, NY
May 2, 2008

The School Library Systems Association, better known as SLSA, presents the Distinguished Service Award to a School Library System Director who has provided an outstanding contribution to school librarianship and to SLSA. I am pleased and proud to present the 2008 Distinguished Service Award to Linda Fox, Director of the Capital Region School Library System.

Linda has been the school library system director in the Capital Region for the past seven years and is well known for her responsive leadership and the creative services she provides to the school library media specialists in her system. Linda is also an adjunct professor at SUNY Albany and is making a direct contribution to the development of the next generation of School Library Media Specialists.

Linda is an active SLSA member -- serving on the Advocacy Committee where she worked to update Facts @ a Glance and retained and worked closely with Mary Ratzer on the development of advocacy tools. Those tools have made it easy for system directors and school library media specialists alike to focus their advocacy efforts. Linda has taken full advantage of her location in the capital of New York State to advocate for school libraries with the many legislators and assembly people she is regularly in contact with.

Last year, during her tenure as President, Linda led SLSA through its first year of consortium online database purchasing, organizing the work into manageable parts and taking on the most complex role of organizing and distributing the information herself. This consortium purchasing project has enabled school library system directors to offer excellent prices on needed electronic resources to the school library media specialists they serve. Linda also took an active role in making connections between SLSA and State Ed and helped make the SLSA 2007 conference relevant and successful.

This year, as Immediate Past President, Linda took on the task of overseeing the consortium purchasing project – newly named Online Resource Consortium (ORC). This follow up work of hiring a consultant and refining the process of negotiating with vendors is a critical piece of insuring the longevity of this ambitious and needed project. She continues to lead the online database committee, and keeps the process moving. ORC would not have become a reality without Linda’s vision and diligence.

Please join SLSA in congratulating Linda Fox on this award!

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Linda's Speech
2008 SLSA Distinguished Service Award
Acceptance Remarks: Linda Fox, Director, Capital Region BOCES School Library System
SLMS Conference, Doubletree Hotel, Tarrytown, NY
May 2, 2008

Thank you Elizabeth. I’d just like to take a quick poll – and I know I’m asking you to date yourselves – but how many people in the room tonight can remember being a school librarian BEFORE there were School Library Systems?

I believe we are reaching a critical mass of people who, in fact, never had the experience of working as a school media specialist without the support of a School Library System. Many of you may not remember when there was no resource sharing from building to building or district or district. You may not recall a time when there was absolutely no staff development that addressed the needs of the teacher librarian. You may assume that there were always opportunities for consortia purchasing for best prices.

Do you know how lucky you are? I have had teachers ask me – Is there a 4th Grade Teachers System? Is there a Chemistry Teachers System? Of course, the answer is no.

You are all familiar with Helen Blowers and her development of a program called 23 Things. It’s a list of competencies that, when completed, give librarians experience with all of the Web 2.0 tools.

I’d like to use that model to go through a list of things that you can and should be able to do if you fully use your School Library System. In the interest of time, we’ll discuss 10 Things (instead of 23).

So here goes: 10 Things You Should Know or Be Able To Do because of your School Library System:

You can pull in materials from all types of libraries from all over the country for students and teachers in your school. It’s called Interlibrary Loan and you use it every week, if not every day.
You can select from a large menu of curriculum related online resources and you should be able to purchase them at the lowest possible price.
You are beginning to build an electronic collection available to all students both at school and at home around the clock with both databases and e-books.
You participate often in staff development opportunities about a variety of topics specifically related to the role of the teacher librarian.
You can provide workshops or training for your teachers about NOVEL, Teaching Books and all of your purchased online resources. You should be able to train comfortably about Web 2.0. online resources, copyright, plagiarism and collaboration.
You are able to have your materials in your collection managed, circulated and cataloged through the library automation coser.
You are able to share resources easily because you are an active member in a regional union catalog. Your kids should surely understand that they can get materials they need from all over the place.
You can always pick up the phone or send an e-mail and get either answers, references or support from the person on the other end – your SLS Director. That person is hired as a resource for you – use them!
You have an open and comfortable relationship with local political leaders – assemblymen, senators and their staff because your SLS director has opened up avenues and opportunities for you to be a library advocate.
Finally and most importantly, your SLS allows and encourages you to be the educator you should be. Staff development, automation and support take some of these time consuming and difficult tasks from your hands – allowing you the freedom to work with teachers and students to do the job you really love to do – TEACH!

Now let me tell you a secret. When the School Library System Directors get together- which we do three or four times a year, we talk about you! We refer to you as “my librarians” in the same way that you refer to students as “my students”. We brag to each other about the creative and smart things you have done. We tell legislators how amazing your work is and we share staff development ideas, best practices and all kinds of stories.

We have stood in your shoes and we know and respect your work. We know that sometimes your principal spends your budget on basketballs. We know that when your aide is absent or if you don’t have an aide – your job becomes clerical very quickly. We know your anxiety when that new book about China just went out the door with Joey and he never returns books – ever.

School Library System Directors and teacher librarians really are a perfect collaborative partnership. We know that you are working hard and you should know that I and all of my colleagues also work very hard, often behind the scenes, to support what you do. Together, we can advance and grow this fabulous and powerful profession. The infrastructure is in place.
We have the capacity and the will.

It is my pleasure and my honor to accept this award tonight. Those of you who know me know that this profession is one of my passions. I have long believed in the potential and the capacity of a great school library program. But a great program only happens where there is a great school library media specialist.

So I really believe in all of you, in all of “my” librarians in the Capital Region SLS and in your colleagues who are not able to be here tonight.

Thanks to all of my School Library System colleagues. Without your professional leadership the job would be so much harder.

I’m proud to call you my colleagues but I am eternally grateful to call you my friends. Thank you.

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Reception Pictures

Jen