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Top Ten Risk Management Exercises For Governing Boards of Libraries & Cultural Institutions During the 2025 Federal Shift

Early 2025 has brought changes to stability of certain federal programs, funding, and governance. This instability is creating concern about access to grants, federal programs, and legal frameworks. What can our board do to address this?
Evaluating DEI Internship Programs

Our organization has for many years now used a “DEI” internship program to bring people from under-represented communities into the library profession. With the new directives coming from the POTUS and various agencies in January 2025, should we stop this program?
Summary and Analysis of Potential Impact of January 2025 POTUS Executive Orders on Libraries Served by the ESLN

You have requested my expedited input regarding the potential impact on ESLN member organizations of the 33 executive orders issued in the first week of the second term of President Donald Trump, which began January 20, 2025.

The nine regional “reference and research library resources” systems comprising the Empire State Library Network serve:

  • Chartered public libraries (of all types)
  • Public library systems (cooperative, consolidated, confederated)
  • School libraries and school library systems (public and private)
  • Hospital libraries (public and private)
  • Academic libraries (public and private)
  • Libraries of educational agencies (public)
  • Law libraries (academic, local, state and federal)
  • Archives (public and private)
  • Museums (public and private)
  • Historical Societies
  • Prison libraries
  • Other “special libraries,” including libraries at religious corporations and even for-profit businesses.

To provide the requested analysis, starting on page 5, this memo arrays each executive order (“EO”) by name and describes the most notable actual or potential impacts on ESLN-served entities (aside from generally applicable impacts). Because the first EO issued in this term of office rescinded eighty prior EOs, those rescinded EOs are also arrayed.

As the content is vast and intricate, a summary of major takeaways precedes the array. Areas of actual or potential high impact and takeaways for ESLN-served entities are highlighted in yellow in both sections.

NOTE: This is a New York State-specific resource.

Thank you for entrusting me with this request.
Open Meetings Law and end of NYS' Emergency Status

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?

Follow-up question: If the answer to the first question is "yes," does this mean that trustees who still want/need to attend remotely from home must disclose their address in the meeting notice?
Open Meetings Law and COVID

A member of my board of trustees would like for us to meet in person. There would be 9 people in the room. They wanted to know if allowing the meeting to be simultaneously on Zoom would satisfy the requirements of open meetings law even though only one member of the public would be able to be physically present in order to stay under the 10-member cap for small gatherings.