Sunday, April 17, 2016

My Little Blog Is One Year Old



It was one year ago today that I wrote my very first blog post, in response to a challenge by my self-proclaimed computer expert son.  Since that time I have written nearly 100 posts related to storytime and presented somewhere between 400-500 storytimes.  That's one thing about working in outreach; you get lots of storytime experience!

When I first started my blog, my primary purpose was to be a creative outlet and somewhat of a professional portfolio.  I found other storytime blogs very helpful in my storytime planning, so I also hoped that my blog could help others as well.  While I was certainly no expert, I felt like I still had something to contribute, and a unique perspective.  I try to not only show what books I use, but why I chose them and how they worked.  I tend to look at books a little differently, without bias towards certain authors, classics, or award-winners.  I simply look for books that work well in storytime and often come across hidden gems that no one else seems to use while shelving or shelf-reading.

A few months after I started my volunteer storytime and my blog, it paid off and I was promoted to a position in Outreach, co-coordinating our Storytime-To-Go program and presenting 15-20 storytimes a week.  I have continued my blog as I do enjoy the creative outlet, and I have found it to be a very convenient record of all of my storytimes that I can refer to from anywhere, which comes in handy, and it continues to serve as a professional portfolio.

I hope other people have found this blog helpful, but that's hard to know.  I didn't expect to get lots of hits as this is a very specific niche and there are many other storytime blogs that have been around for much longer and are well-known.  But I have gotten a small but steady stream of traffic that is slowly increasing.  My biggest disappointment is that people rarely leave comments.  I would love to know what people think, if they found something helpful, have any suggestions for specific storytimes or blog content, etc.  I'd like to think I'm not spending all this time writing just for myself.

So, if you are reading this and have ever found this blog to be helpful, interesting, or entertaining, please leave a comment :)

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