By Michelle Young, NYLA-ASLS President

Jeremy Johannesen, NYLA Executive Director

Kelsey Milner, NYLA-ASLS Communications Committee

The New York Library Association (NYLA)--founded in 1890 by Melvil Dewey-- is the nation’s oldest state library association. The New York Library Association’s Academic and Special Libraries Chapter (NYLA-ASLS) is one of several state-level organizations dedicated to the work of academic and special librarianship.

One of the many legislative efforts NYLA is working on is New York Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Legislation (TAPFR). This legislation requires that any New York State (NYS) funded research published in peer‐reviewed journals is made available online by the state agencies that underwrite the research. This bill would bring NYS in line with the federal standards employed by the National Institute of Health and the State of California. Currently, when publicly-funded research is published in peer-reviewed journals, libraries must expend public dollars for public and scholarly access. The impact of this bill would eliminate an area of double taxation by making taxpayer-funded scholarly research available after one year. Currently, private companies force libraries to expend tax dollars for access to research that has already been publicly-funded. This standard would follow the federal model and would allow for access not only by taxpayers, but would lend necessary support to academic libraries who need research materials, particularly when subscriptions are cancelled due to inadequate financial resources.

To support our work, we are hosting our first Academic Library Summit during the summer of 2017. This invitation-only gathering will include representatives from specialty groups representing academic, research, and special libraries from across the state. The delegates from each invited group will have an opportunity to share strengths, opportunities, and challenges in fulfilling their given mission, propose strategies to identify which of these are common or possibly systemic, and offer collaborative strategies to build on common strengths and lessen or eliminate challenges. Particular attention will be given to those concerns that may be addressed via legislation at the state level.

Summit participants are also asked to consider the development of a white paper commenting on the status of Academic, Research and Special Libraries in New York State. This report would provide a snapshot of the community based on collectively agreed upon benchmarks. The intent in creating this paper is to formally document the immense value of our strong and rich mix of academic, research and special libraries in New York State; identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing this community; and to create recommendations to address challenges with regard to preserving the value and sustainability of this critical segment of the library community in New York State.

Academic and special library programming is in process for the New York Library Association 2017 Annual Conference & Trade Show: “Choose Your Own Adventure”, scheduled for November 8 - 11, 2017 in Saratoga Springs, NY. Join us!