NYSHEI News

The Business Council of New York State released an end of legislative session summary.

NYSHEI is a member of the Business Council but does not endorse or advocate the Council’s legislative agenda.

In a June 2008 report title the State Technology and Science Index: Enduring Lessons for the Intangible Economy, The Milken Institute stresses the importance of knowledge and information infrastructure to a state’s economic success. Not surprisingly, New York is not among the leading states.

In a report that makes strong arguments for NYSHEI’s ARIA proposal to empower academic and research libraries as the “information infrastructure” for a 21st century economy, the Milken Institute states plainly that “university-based research and development are important drivers of economic development if properly channeled and harnessed.”

Assessing the 50 states “inventory of the technology and science assets” the report places New York at 15, behind our neighboring states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and indeed all of the Northeastern states that – along with Utah, California, Virginia and others – dominate the top of the list.

Other notable quotes from the report include:

* “Long run economic growth is highly dependent on funding and performing R&D activities.”

* “Technology firms are continually monitoring the globe to find attractive locations for their R&D activities.”

* “The nation’s universities and colleges account for approximately half of basic research [performed in the United State].”

* “The economic value of university research accrues over many years. However, campus facilities, research staff and knowledge contribute to a region’s research base and have a short-term payoff, too: they attract new business.”

* “Knowledge and the innovation capacities of human capital are at the core of the new intangible-based economics of place… Today, with the emergence of the information age, the strength of a country is based on knowledge. National greatness will arise not from our natural resources or our factories, but from our people – people with new ideas and skills.”

As NYSHEI has long pointed out, this is the great challenge to New York, and its laggard ICE (Intellectual, Cultural, Educational) economy. A critical part of the solution lies in the state’s public and private academic and research libraries, collaboratively brought together by state support.

NYSHEI Poster (PDF)

NYSHEI needs your help to put a “face” on our ARIA proposal.

To take our advocacy to the next level NYSHEI libraries must put a “face” on the value of academic and research libraries. Therefore we have developed an advertising campaign targeted at legislators and other policy makers.

Using the testimonials of campus faculty and researchers we can demonstrate the real world importance of an intangible asset, like electronic databases and “information” resources. Please look at the sample poster (above) which highlights a Siena College based Biochemist who says that “library resources are as critical a tool as computers and lab space.”

I need you to find member of your local faculty who will provide similar testimony to the value of academic and research library resources. Please help. The next legislative session may prove critical to our efforts to secure millions of dollars in state appropriations for academic and research libraries. We can not let an opportunity pass because we failed to “humanize” our argumentation.

Contact Jason Kramer at NYSHEI for more information. If you can find a friendly faculty member, we can help craft their support into an affirmation for NYSHEI endeavors.

Teresa Ronning, Head Librarian at Adirondack Community College, has joined the Governing Board of NYSHEI. Ms. Ronning was named to the Board by the SUNY Council of Library Directors to fill the position made vacant when NYSHEI Co-Convener Carey Hatch of SUNY Central Administration became an ex officio board member pursuant to a bylaws change adopted at the 2008 Annual Meeting.

Ms. Ronning began her career as a public reference librarian in Utica, New York. From 1982-1987 she was a Supreme Court Law Librarian in the NYS Office of Court Administration in Westchester County. She attended Pace Law School evenings to obtain her J.D. in 1988. Ronning practiced law in Warren County, New York from 1989-1995. In 1995, she returned to librarianship starting at Adirondack Community College as Systems Librarian. Since 1997 Ms. Ronning has been the Head Librarian at ACC. She recently received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Professional Service.

Ronning served as Program Chair of the Eastern New York Association of College and Research Libraries and then President of ENYACRL in 1999. She also served on the SUNY Council of Library Directors Executive Committee and was President of SCLD in 2002.

Ms. Ronning holds a B.A. in sociology and M.L.S. from Syracuse University as well as a J.D. from Pace University. She lives in Bolton Landing, New York, and has two children attending college. She spends her spare time enjoying Lake George and the Adirondack mountains.

Empire State College is the only SUNY institution that will not feel the sting of cuts.