Friday, January 15, 2010

Introduction

"If at first you do succeed, try to hid your astonishment." ~Anonymous

I think that quote just about says it all for me. My "so that's how it works" moments are getting to be quite a few.

Most of my "moments" happen at the Peguis Public Library where I work full time. We are located in central Manitoba about two hours drive from Winnipeg. Our community is an Indian Reserve or First Nation and one of only two Reserves in Manitoba with a Public Library. There are 63 First Nations in Manitoba.

I have a wonderful husband who comes to the library in the evenings to keep me company while I work on my course. We don't have high speed at home so I am pretty much at my work place all the time except for when I need to catch a few hours of shut eye.

Setting up my blog was a new experience for me. My course instructor's suggestions of the free blog publishing tools available was the clincher and so I went with one of those.

Creating the blog was suprisingly very easy, the difficult part is finding my voice and writing for others. I feel somewhat uncomfortable writing about myself and expressing my opinions. I am hoping blogging will become easier in this department for me.

What to do with a blog? Would a blog work on a library website? Our website is currently being constructed and I may try a book recommendation or a book review blog there.

And so I am expecting many, many more astonishing moments, not that most things work the first time, but usually with a few more clicks they do eventually work. Then I will be carefully trying to hide my astonishment that it actually worked!

4 comments:

  1. Lois,
    What an astonishing fact that out of 63 First Nations in Manitoba, only two have public libraries. Does the library contain a lot of FN authors? Do you have many storytellers come as guests? The elders perhaps. I use to work with the Nuxalk in Bella Coola and story telling is such an important part of their culture. You have a great looking library, very welcoming.

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  2. Hi Lois,

    I'm sure those 'aha' moments will come regularly this term! I love the quote at the beginning of your post.

    Finding your voice and writing for others is one of the biggest challenges in this course. It will get easier. Try not to get discouraged and remember that this is about your inquiry and your learning journey!

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  3. Nicola,
    It is pretty amazing that there are only two libraries out of 63 FNs. I think it may have a lot to do with Federal and Provincial jurisdictions. FNs fall under Federal and public libraries fall under Provincial.

    A FN section is being developed and is one of our main focuses.

    For Family Literacy Day the library is hosting a weiner roast and then a storytelling event. It should be fun. I will keep you posted on how it turns out.

    Lois

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  4. Hi Joanne,

    Thank you for your encouragement. I am trying to enjoy this learning journey and so far I am enjoying it very much.
    It is so practical and hands on! The PD resources I am finding through others on Blogger and Twitter is quite amazing.

    I got the idea to start my blog off with a quote from blogger James Chartrand. I was stuck on how to be somewhat creative in beginnig blogs and I recalled reading about using quotes. It really helped me to get started on the "introduction blog".

    Have a great day!

    Lois

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