Emergency Response

We have received several questions about setting graduation ceremonies to music and streaming them or recording them and sharing them with students. What are the laws surrounding this? There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there. Below is a question I received:

The need to migrate ceremonies online has created a tsunami of copyright concerns.  What is a ceremony without the right music?  But this question pertains specifically to high school graduations for public schools, so we’ll confine it to those institutions.

We are planning an emergency preparedness training for library staff to include CPR, First Aid, Stop the Bleed, and Narcan training. We have heard from librarians that some boards are concerned about the implications of having staff trained. We would like to have some commonly asked questions addressed so that we can answer them if they come up.

Because the training and resources described in the question can save lives, I will both a) quickly answer the questions and b) provide an answer in a format suitable to share with a library board.

The library (school district public library without a union or a bargaining agreement and less than 50 employees) offers paid sick leave for most employees. However, based on what we have learn we have paid people, without it coming off of their earned sick time, if they are told to quarantine because they have been exposed to the virus.

I can offer a simple answer, and a complicated answer. 

Here is the simple answer: 

How does the NY HERO Act https://dol.ny.gov/ny-hero-act apply to the different types of libraries? Are Association Libraries included?

The letters in the "NY HERO Act" stand for "Health and Essential Rights."[1]

What "essential rights" does it protect? 

Now that Open Meetings Law modifications have been lifted, are we still required to maintain physical distancing for board meetings? We have a fifteen member board which makes it difficult to spread our trustees out. I understand that we can ask trustees whether they have been vaccinated: If all are vaccinated, do we have to maintain physical distancing?

This question comes at a very challenging time.[1]

The question is difficult because right now, the World Health Organization is looking at the "Delta Variant" of COVID-19 and telling the world to consider continuing to use masks and social distancing while inside.[2]

First question: With the expiration of the Executive Orders on June 24th, 2021, including the Order modifying the requirements of the Open Meetings Law, are libraries back to the "old way" of conducting trustee meetings?

First question: Yes...with the expiration of the Executive Orders on June 24th, including the Order modifying the Open Meetings law,[1] things are "back to normal."

Or, as the Committee on Open Government, the authority on the State's Open Meetings Law (OML), put it:

We are preparing to go to the "masks recommended" phase.  Staff would still be required to wear masks in public portions of the building, but not in their non-shared offices.  However, for those in shared offices, how do we handle the vaccinated/not vaccinated issue?  Do we go with the honor system and tell those in shared offices that if they are vaccinated, they may go maskless?

[DISCLAIMER: This answer presumes there is no collective bargaining agreement or landlord/municipal host terms that impact the library's flexibility while revising their Safety Plan.]

Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, here are my "short answers" to these excellent questions:

Our postman refuses to wear a mask in the building even though it is policy and a NYS mandate. When asked to, he refuses and because of that, now delivers the mail by yelling "mail" into our building bookdrop and drops the mail inside. If no one hears him, we miss our opportunity to give him outgoing mail, which he told us to just drop in a mailbox down the street.

I am expediting the answer to this question in light of the new guidance issued by the CDC on 5/13 (stating that people two weeks past their final vaccination can relax on wearing masks)[1], because I foresee more situations like this are going to arise.

I am writing to update the excellent advice on the RAQ page from November 2020 in regards to the retention of health screening records in a school district, local government, or state agency (under a separate retention schedule.)

First: thank you very much for your kind words and feedback.  Both are very appreciated, and I encourage users of the service to keep a dialogue going--the service is only as good as the questions and input that inspire it.

We are a large (100-employee) school district public library. We are currently encouraging and educating employees on getting vaccinated, but not (yet) *requiring* vaccinations.

Over and over again, I am floored by the care, tenacity, and creativity of the libraries determined to provide services in a time of pandemic.  New York's libraries just don't give up.  This question shows the mechanics of that fighting spirit.