CONNECT Planning Committee Minutes for April 2011

Date:  April 19th, 2011

Location:  Belle Isle

In attendance: Angela Thornton, Barbara Johnson, Barbara Beasley, Kim Edwards, Susan Hutchins, Clyde Herrod

We recapped pros and cons of the CONNECT forum on March 8th and shared feedback from coworkers. Dr. Brown was a hit, with several people asking if she could be an annual guest speaker. Those in attendance also appreciated learning about the Northwest library from Donna Morris and Todd Olberding. We have taken into consideration the main complaint of no snacks available and will remedy that for the next forum!

The next forum is planned for June 14th. The topic is Reader’s Advisory. We are going to ask Ruby Soutiere from MSL to speak about sources outside of MLS databases that she uses regularly for finding good books; Q&A from attendees will be encouraged. This will be a more informal and conversational speaking engagement and separate from the class on Reader’s Advisory offered by MSL so that we won’t be duplicating efforts. Also, Angela and Kim will do very brief power points on Shelfari.com and LibraryThing.com for the group. Table talks on specific genres will be the second half of the meeting, with attendees having a set amount of time at each table. The topics we discussed and decided upon are: Inspirational Fiction, Suspense, Paranormal, Graphic Novels/Literature, and Street Lit. We will finalize “hosts” for each table at the next meeting. We will also encourage library staff to send favorite lists in specific genres, favorite wikis or blogs, favorite websites – any source they use to troll for popular reading material.

The next planning meeting is May 3rd at BI at 2pm.