Recently Asked Questions

A member library has the following questions concerning libraries that are subject to Open Meetings Law (OML) and have adopted Robert’s Rules of Order for their meetings:
1. Are consent agendas allowed for agencies subject to OML?
2. Should public or association libraries refrain from having their Boards of Trustees accept the financials (motion, second, vote) presented by the library’s treasurer so as not to give the appearance of agreement and assurance that they are accurate and without error?
3. If there is a board committee that, per the bylaws, is not given the power to act independently o[f] the board, is it permissible for a member of such a committee to make a motion to be followed by discussion and vote without a second?
4. From the perspective of OML or others that you know are relevant for the library is it legally acceptable for a board chair to make a motion?

A patron came in and asked me to “witness a signature.” He was signing some bank document, but it didn’t need to be notarized, just witnessed. I realized he wasn’t signing his name, and when I asked him about it, he said that it was his aunt’s name and he had a Power of Attorney - he showed me those documents, so I ended up signing as a witness. But I felt uncomfortable about it. My understanding is if you have a POW, you should be signing your own name, not forging the signature of that other person. I asked my wife who is an attorney about it, and she said I shouldn’t have signed as a witness. This is a regular patron of ours, so I’m concerned not only that this will come up again, but that I will get pushback if I refuse to sign as a witness.

We are a small, rural, association library that serves a population of under 4,500. We recently received an Abuse or Molestation Exclusion from our general liability/property insurance company. It states that the Abuse or Molestation Exclusion on our policy has been replaced with a new "Broad" Abuse or Exclusion, which applies regardless of whether the abuse or molestation occurs while in the care, custody or control of any insured. Basically, we have no coverage in the case of any abuse or molestation claim made against a staff member. Our library has 21 security cameras throughout our facility, including any room where a staff member might be alone with children. We have a strict policy where a staff member is never to be alone one-on-one with a child. We have a Child Safety Policy in place. We also have Directors and Officers insurance, Employment Practices Liability insurance, as well as Workmans Comp coverage. We've had our insurance agent look into a separate Sexual Abuse Molestation (SAM) policy but it is quite expensive. Is it necessary for libraries to purchase an additional SAM policy, if we have taken these extra precautions?

Within the context of recent regional school book challenges, much of the attention has been focused on print collections. However, librarians and school districts have started to look at digital content, too.

Sora is the K-12 platform used by many students and staff in NYS to access OverDrive content (as opposed to Libby, which is used by public library patrons). In Sora, content access levels can be implemented to restrict access to content.

Here is how OverDrive defines content access levels:

Content access levels let you control which types of users can view and borrow certain titles in your digital collection. Content access levels are customizable and can be different from the publisher-defined audience label.

Note: In the Libby app, users will be able to see all titles in your digital collection, regardless of content access levels. If a user tries to borrow a book that's restricted by content access level, the checkout won't be completed and the user will get an error message.

Content access levels are designed to let you manage access to titles based on age-appropriateness. Users are assigned a user type ("Adult," "Young Adult," or "Juvenile") when you set up authentication (for schools) or based on library card type (for libraries). Users can access titles at or below their access level:

"Adult" users can access all titles
"Young Adult" users can only access titles you label "Young Adult" or "Juvenile"
"Juvenile" users can only access titles you label "Juvenile"

A title's content access levels, which are assigned by you, may be different from the title's audience, which is assigned in its metadata by the publisher.
 

I am wondering if restricting digital access to content by grade level and/or to individual student could/would be another "creative work around" to limit access that may or may not be outside of board policy?

Background: On Jan 1, 2023 we instituted several changes to employee time off accrual policies. We constructed the new vacation accrual policies carefully and gave some of our more senior staff "legacy policies" in order to not decrease any current employee's vacation accrual rate. However, we DID institute a cap on the number of vacation hours an employee could bank at any given time (1/2 a year for FT staff, and 1/4 yr FTE for PT staff). We did this for two reasons: 1) to mitigate financial risk to our library in the event of unforeseen separations, when we pay out any unused vacation time, and 2) to encourage staff to take regular vacations, which prevents burnout and encourages us to understand each other's job responsibilities better when covering for someone else.

Unfortunately, the vacation cap has had some unintended consequences. Some staff members are reticent to take vacation and are bumping up against the cap each month, which effectively means their compensation is being reduced. Also, our PT staff work varying number of hours per week (20-32) but we don't prorate the PT vacation cap (for logistical reasons), which makes it difficult for staff who work close to FT hours to save up enough time to take a longer vacation, or multiple vacations in a relatively short period.

My legal question is: If we were to change our time off accrual policy to allow staff to bank as much vacation as they like but specify that upon separation they could only be paid out 'x' number of hours, could we be accused of wage theft?