TAG Meeting Minutes 3/2/10

by Rachel

TAG Meeting Minutes
3/2/10
11:30 – 1:00
Meeting Room B

WHO WAS THERE
Darian, Zoe, Shecharya, Derek, Naftalia, David, Rachel, Jason, Brian

RECRUITING NEW MEMBERS
You had some great ideas for recruiting new TAG members! Here they are, in no particular order:

  • Make posters to hang up at school
  • Distribute fliers to friends & members of existing clubs
  • Flash Mob / Flash Freeze, followed by flier distribution
  • Wear banana suit on ped mall, followed by flier distribution
  • Make TAG bookmarks and distribute at ICPL
  • Give TAG applications to all Summer Reading Program participants
  • Bake sale:  make cakes and/or pizzas that say “TAG”
  • Create Facebook Group and invite Facebook Friends to join TAG
  • Advertise on local radio & TV (The Library Channel?)
  • Hire Skywriter / Blimp to advertise TAG
  • Invite existing ICPL Volunteers to join TAG
  • Word of mouth — invite your friends!

At the April TAG meeting we’ll decide which ideas we like best (and are most realistic :) )and start working on them.

UPCOMING EVENTS
YES, we are on for a gelato-making tour at Capanna in April!  This might be a registration-only event with limited openings — we’ll keep you posted.  We’ll try to make sure TAG doesn’t conflict with prom on 4/17.

In May we’ll have a ginormous party and play outdoorsy games such as tag, hide-and-go-seek, sardine, and kickball.

ECO SUMMER READING PROGRAM
Your eco give-away & event ideas:

  • Bike accessories (bells, water bottles, etc.)
  • Seed packets
  • eBook gift certificates
  • Gift certificates to erase library fines
  • Bike day!  Bike safety, bike repair, helmet decorating
  • Invite master gardener to give presentation
  • Produce “Horticulture Friday” teencast
  • Learn how to make handmade paper & altered (note)books

BLOG & PODCAST STATS
Some of you were wondering if anyone ever reads the blog or listens to the podcast.  WELL!  This month the blog has had 2621 unique visits by real people, and the most recent podcast has been downloaded, played directly from the blog, or picked up via RSS feed 113 times!

…AND OTHER STUFF

  • Brian is going to start planning and attending some teen events!
  • TAG members expressed interest in having a greater influence on library decisions.  We will explore ways to make this happen, including the possibility of TAG contributing input to the Library Board.
  • Someone asked if 18 & 19 year-olds can participate in TAG, even if they have already graduated from highschool.  We’ve never considered this before!  We’ll keep this in mind when recruiting for next year’s TAG.

Spyro the Dragon

by gomerman

Spyro the Dragon

Just yesterday I completed Spyro the Dragon for the first time. If you haven’t heard about Spyro, look him up. This purple dragon is amazing. He can glide, spit fire, and charge his enemies into oblivion. This game was released in 1997. If you have played it, then play it again if you haven’t beaten it in awhile. Pick up the purple dragon and kill some Gnasty Gnorc again. And if you liked the two good sequels, play those again as well.

After you play them, think about ways to make it better, if possible. Are there ways that Spyro could have been made better? Such as adding higher difficulty, or making the amount of treasure higher? Or do you think the game is perfect as it was, and should remain untouched?

AnimeFest was Awesome, Duh.

by Rachel

Anime, Manga, Fan Art, Cosplay, Bentos, J-Pop — how could you go wrong???  Here are a few photos from our most excellent 2010 Anime / Manga Festival at ICPL (to see more photos, just check out our Flickr page).  Thanks to everyone, especially the TAG volunteers, who helped make this year’s festival a huge success!

Makin' Bentos

Makin’ Bentos

A Bento Contest Winner

Bento Contest Winner: Most Beautiful Bento

Fan Art Contest Winner

Art Contest Winner: Best Fan Art

Watching Black Cat

Watching Black Cat

Flash mob in Iowa City!

by jason

This morning my Facebook feed was all abuzz with news of a City High flash mob at the 1st Ave Hy-Vee!  So sad I missed it as I was there earlier that day buying food for the Anime Fest bentos.  I recognize at least two of you!  : )

Tweet Your Own Adventure with Meg Cabot

by Rachel

Meg Cabot

Calling all Meg Cabot fans: help her tweet a new story next week! Meg Cabot (@megcabot) will tweet the first line of a new story on February 16 at 11:00 a.m. CST, and then Twitter users everywhere will be able to tweet what comes next.  For more details, check out the press release from the BBC website.

If you want to join in, but you’re not really sure what’s up with Twitter, tweeting, hashtags, and all that fun stuff  — just drop us a note at teens@icpl.org and we’ll help you out.  We love tweeting (@ICPL)!

Another one?!

by gomerman

yes, fair people of iowa city, another snow day. but to some point, doesn’t it get annoying every once in awhile? I guess we can’t do anything about it though. I am going to graduate this may from city high, but if we have another snow day than i may have to be in school for another week.

Doodling Improves Your Memory?

by Darian

JFK doodle

I found this article while I was doing some of my biology homework and I thought it was interesting because my aunts told me a while ago that it worked and I did not know if I believed them.  So here is an article that proves them right.

A group of test subjects who were directed to doodle while listening to a series of long, dull conversations remembered the details much better than the group who simply sat and listened.

Teen Anime and Manga Fest 2010

by jason

yu-yu-hakusho

It’s February again!  What does that mean for ICPL teens?  Anime/Manga Fest! So all you 7-12 graders are invited to watch big screen showings of:
* Yu Yu Hakusho
* Azumanga Daioh
* Black Cat

We’ll talk about our favorite comics and manga. We will eat massive amounts of candy sushi and will hold our first ever DIY Bento arrangement contest!

There will also be a chance to display your fan or original artwork so be sure to bring your finished drawings or do some freehand work while you’re here!

We’ll be in Meeting Room A from 2-4 p.m.

If you have any questions send us an email at teens@icpl.org or call 356-5200 , option 4 (Fiction Desk).

Goodbye, Howard Zinn and J.D. Salinger

by Rachel

Two of my favorite authors died within the last 24 hours :-(

Howard Zinn, the historian and author of A People’s History of the United States, died of a heart attack last night at age 87. I love Howard because he had the guts to tell the “untold” histories of unheard Americans, like Native Americans, Black Americans, Women, and Vietnam War Vets. His re-telling of Columbus’ “discovery” of America really stirred some people up!

J.D. Salinger just died too, at age 91.  While I love Catcher in the Rye, Nine Stories, and Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters, and Seymour: an Introduction, my favorite book of all time is still Franny and Zooey.  Whenever I’m not feeling like myself, I can just pick up a copy of Franny and Zooey, and then I start to feel like me again. . . you know what I mean?

These guys are both great.  I’m really going to miss them!

Invent-o a Bento

by the crafty veteran

As a crafter and food enthusiast, creating a bento box would seem to be the perfect project for me. What you may not guess, however, is that I hate cooking. Luckily, my bento required absolutely no heating beyond a microwave to warm up leftover rice!

Rachel asked me to make a bento box in preparation for the Anime Festival on Saturday, February 13. How romantic, eh? Anyway, bento boxes are yet another wonderful Japanese invention, like washi tape and pokémon. Bento, roughly translated, means, I believe, “ridiculous amount of energy to create tiny, adorable, somethings.” Or something like that. They are basically little portions of food like sushi, rice, vegetables, fruit, etc. arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way. They can be quite elaborate. Google image it.

You can use anything. A pimento and mento bento would be quite a cento.

Ahem. Here’s the how-to.

MAKE YOUR OWN BENTO BOX
Total time: 1 hour

What I Used:supplies use

  • one box (I used a round gift box from Ikea, but tupperware works very well. Or, if you’re a bento snob like Jason, something like this. Or, cuter, that.)
  • aluminum foil
  • 2 slices sourdough bread
  • 1 cucumber
  • 2 cherry tomatoes
  • 1 clementine
  • plain cream cheese
  • fruit jam/jelly/preserves
  • rice
  • vegetable peeler
  • sharp knife
  • ice cream scoop
  • rolling pin
  • wax paper

Instructions:
1. Line box with aluminum foil, set aside
2. Scoop a ball of rice with ice cream scoop, place in boxrice ball use
3. Wash vegetables, peel cucumber
4. Cut a few round cucumber slices, starcucumber star use
5. Cut long, thin strip of cucumbercucumber use
6. Score 2 cherry tomatoes

score tomatoes use

7. Peel clementine, cut thin slices
clementine use
8. Flatten slices of bread with rolling pin, between wax paper. Cut off crusts, roll again

roll bread use

9. Spread slices of bread with whatever. I did one with jelly, one with cream cheese and thin slice of cucumber
assemble rolls use
10. Roll up bread (like a sushi roll), and slice into cylinders approximately 1.5 inches long
cut rolls use
11. Arrange everything in some cute way in the box

THE BIG REVEAL…
closed use

open use

detail use

Enjoy!

enjoy use

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