SLS News Archive: COVID-19 Announcement

Good afternoon friends!

I hope that you are all doing well on this third day of our new normal.

First of all, like most of you, our SLS/Library/Multimedia/Arts staff are working remotely.  Everyone has their office phones transferred to their home or cell phones and are available to assist and answer questions during normal business hours.  I would ask that you be respectful of after-hours calls, since these are personal phones, and all of us are going to need time to rest and regroup.  We all have the technology needed to do our jobs as we work remotely (printing and scanning are still an issue).  At this time, we are unable to fulfill off-air taping request as that requires someone to be physically onsite.

Like most of you, we’ve been overwhelmed with the deluge of free resources that have been made available, and are reluctant to recommend things that require folks (students, teachers, and parents) to provide personally identifiable information in order to create accounts.  We ask you to be mindful of the privacy protections of Education Law 2d (student data privacy), the Shield Act (personal privacy issues), and most importantly your own district’s policies with regard to use of new and unvetted online resources.  To this end, we remind you of the wealth or resources available from the state (NovelNY), the SLS (OverDrive/Sora, Safari Montage, etc.), and the resources your district purchases through various Monroe 1 BOCES services.  We have created a LibGuide to share COVID-19 information, reminders, and resources we’ve learned of.  We’re intentionally staying away from things that require account creation, and concentrating on freely available resources and ideas.  We will update this site as we become aware of new resources, so please visit the LibGuide frequently.  It is found at: http://libguides.monroe.edu/SLS/eResources

If you know of something that we’ve missed, please let Liesl or I know and will review it and add if appropriate.

I am also working with several of our vendor partners to make other resources more freely available, so please keep your eyes peeled for an occasional email to share that information.  I promise not to fill your inboxes.

I’m confident that we will all get through this together and hopeful that we’ll come out of this experience with lots of new knowledge and ideas.  Please stay safe and healthy.

Looking forward,

Katie