Recently Asked Questions

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?

A local artist has asked for us to become a fiscal sponsor (act as a “pass-through” organization). Is this something a public library can do?

Politics are impacting libraries more than ever, and our library organization is considering hiring a lobbyist to represent our interests in Albany.  We know that as a non-profit we can't engage in "political activity", but can we hire a lobbyist?  And if we can, what do we need to be thinking about, legally?

Is there professional insurance for librarians? Given the book-banning lawsuits, do librarians and library workers need additional insurance to cover possible lawsuits? Other states have passed laws fining library workers $10,000. Besides the library's D and O insurance, do librarians and library workers need additional insurance coverage?