Recently Asked Questions

Are municipal public libraries obligated to provide retirement benefits for all employees? Does the library board need to approve a motion to provide retirement benefits for all employees or selected employees? Does the number of hours pertain? Or does the employee qualify for state retirement system benefits through the municipality? Again - is it based upon hours worked?

We attended the excellent FOIL workshop just offered by WNYLRC and hope you repeat it. Our institution has any number of manuscripts and papers that could be considered Fugitive Records: archival material from government offices, most of which was donated decades before the advent of the NY State Archives and modern public record regulations. Multiple area institutions are probably in the same situation.

We have physical custody (long story) of the papers of a retired congressmember from the area, but we deliberately did not send a Deed of Gift, because we did not want legal responsibility and ownership. We would prefer to return the papers to the congessmember because the collection is just too large for us to responsibly house or process. Negotiations along these lines have not been successful and we have not found another taker for them.

My questions are:

1. Are a congressmember's papers considered public records and subject to FOIL requests? 

2. If we do have the congressmember sign a deed of gift, so that we can weed, discard, and transfer as we see fit, are we liable if someone submits a FOIL request for records that we disposed of?

3. For archival records given to us from government offices almost a hundred years ago, are we obligated to repatriate them?

4. Also, are these archival records donated decades ago subject to FOIL requests?

It is not uncommon in small non-profits and higher education institutions to find an employment class called Salaried/Non-Exempt. If this person is not paid annually above the minimum salaried/exempt threshold AND their standard work hours fall below 40 hours, what are the laws governing the hours between standard work hours and 40 per week, and how are they applied?

For example: A library manager paid $32,000 per year, paid bi-weekly whose standard work week is 32 hours. If this manager works above 32 hours but less than 40, the library pays the manager compensatory time. 

How long after the accrual of this time is the library legally required to pay for the hours worked - either through time used or in money? 
And if in money, is it the hourly rate gained by annual "salary" / (standard work hours x 52)?

Finally, what if the library manager sought compensatory time over financial compensation as the better benefit? Do they have a choice?

Pornography and public computers in libraries have gone hand-in-hand for some time and I'm doing some research on how library policies should handle addressing this in a realistic and proactive way. The question that I am researching is whether or not it is legal to explicitly list pornography as something that cannot be accessed on library computers. I understand ALA and the Intellectual Freedom Committees stance on this issue as well as the first amendment ramifications and I am certainly not advocating for censorship, however, I've seen several policies that have tried to circumvent the issue by having vague, unhelpful policies and others that have flat out said that it is not allowed. Any clarifying help from a legal standpoint would be appreciated. 

My understanding is that it would not be constitutional to have a policy restricting pornography, however, there could be something in the policy that restricts the displaying of pornography or other offensive content. 

Thank you.

Does our library incur any liability when a program presenter uses our facility and presents a program at our behest that includes music, either a previously-issued recording of music not original to the presenter, or a live performance of a piece of music composed by a person who is not the presenter? What about a presenter who just contracts to use the venue, without library sponsorship of the program? What about the capture of such a performance and our streaming it or recording it for later posting on our website or broadcasting it on our community television as a public service? If so, what is the best way to protect ourselves?