What happened at the September meeting

Hi everyone - thanks to everybody who came out to Monday's meeting. For those who couldn't make it and for our new members, here's what happened:

First - we recruited new members. TAG members took a look at the applications we received and selected some promising candidates - welcome to Ruth, Isabelle, Nishanthi, and Wendy (assuming you all still want to join of course!). When we meet in October, we'll be able to have some proper introductions.
Second - we reviewed a draft template for the teen site that our web designers came up with. Had some cool features (choice of styles, good menus, etc) and looked pretty simple. My meeting with the designer got postponed until next week, but I'll keep the group posted about what happens. In the meantime, I'll be starting to map out some content for the site, and I'd like input from the group about potential features. So far, I'm thinking that the following should be included as categories of info on the page:
- a section for recommended books, new arrivals, featured books, CDs, DVDs, booklists by theme, peer reviews from the TRAP
- volunteering information
- upcoming programmes and events
- homework help - I'll need more input on what would be useful in this section
- a TAG page - news from the group, projects we're working on - obviously, this would be your choice
What else should be included? Are these useful features? Should we include internet links? We may spend a few minutes next month discussing this.

Next I asked the group about my Info Literacy project (I'm working on a presentation for the OLA conference on providing Information Literacy Instruction to teens (i.e. teaching how to research). Some of the areas of the research process where you feel high school students are week in include:
- web research beyond google
- using library resources, finding materials in the library
- narrowing your search terms (search strategy)
- time management
- Citations
If you think of anything else, please let me know. What I think I'm going to do is create a survey to distribute to teens in the library to probe this question and I think I'll use the group as my guinea pigs to test drive the survey (probably at the November meeting).


Last but not least, we began discussing the art show. So far some of the ideas included:
- having an "opening night" in February, but then having the show run on an ongoing basis with rotating collections
- maybe looking at having "academy awards" on the opening week we themes like "most colourful" or whatever
- we'd include all media
- maybe consider a limit on # of pieces per person
- size limit = carriable
- we'd advertise on the website, in library and through art teachers
Keep thinking of more ideas and we'll pick this up net meeting. I'd like to have most of the details established for next month so I can submit a concrete proposal to the managers.

Let me know if I missed anything!
Andrea