Library work in Paraguay

Approaching halfyear mark in the Southern Hemisphere!

Yes, it´s hard to believe, but come August 4 I´ll have been in Paraguay half a year already…incredible!

By now I´ve made some library connections in Paraguay. The PC infrastructure here includes a library committee--hooray! I`m currently helping with the revision of a library manual compiled previously by other PCVs, ¨Manual de Bibliotecas en Paraguay¨ as part of the prep for a library workshop to be held this fall, offered to PCVs and their respective Paraguayan community contacts. That is, we HOPE to offer the workshop, if we can raise enough $$$ via the Peace Corps Partnership Program. Please indulge me, dear friends, by taking a couple of extra minutes to read a letter from our committee which I´m taking the liberty to cut and paste here:

Dear Family, Friends, and Generous People who Love Books and Libraries,

A couple interesting facts about Paraguay: books are prohibitively expensive, and libraries are few and far between. Those libraries that do exist often lack staff. Those staff members that do exist often lack knowledge of how effectively to use the libraries.

That’s why we write.

In September 2009, the Peace Corps Paraguay Library Committee hopes to hold a two-day workshop for 30 librarians, teachers, and their Peace Corps volunteer counterparts. The workshop’s theme? How to find library resources and how to use them well once you get them.

We hope that you, Generous Readers, will visit the following link,

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=526-195

for more details about this important project. (Please check out the link!)

We hope that you, Generous Readers, will find the project worthy of your support and donate some small (or large!) amount to making it a reality. Your donations (tax- deductible, of course) will cover food, lodging, and logistical workshop expenses. Participants will work with their communities to raise money for transportation to and from the workshop, held in Asunción.

Thank you so much, everyone, for your time, your consideration, and (we hope) your support.

Sincerely,
Peace Corps Paraguay Library Committee

DENISE here again...THANKS in advance for reading all of this, and consider donating even just $20...like one trip to the movies with snacks! (Or in lieu of sending me a birthday package :)) I can personally attest that $20 goes a LONG way here in Paraguay. I, of course, plan to attend this workshop (assuming we raise enough $$$) and will help assure that we get the most bang possible for your hard-earned bucks!
If you think of it later and don´t have the above link handy, just go to the Peace Corps site, www.peacecorps.gov
You`ll see a "Donate Now" on the left side button. Click, and you`ll find the project by entering the last name DICKINSON to make your contribution.

(Here´s more info, directly from the link, in case you want to know more before clicking the link):

The summary below was provided by the Peace Corps Volunteer and the community administering this project.

The Library Workshop stems from the collective desire of the Peace Corps Volunteer-led Pro-Library Committee to provide a 10-hour capacity-building workshop to 30 librarians and/or teachers from diverse Paraguayan communities, both rural and urban. All participating Peace Corps Volunteers are actively involved in library projects, either working with communities to improve library management and community access to information or create such access. As such, all members of this committee seek to strengthen community institutions and foster responsible project management design.

Due to a scarcity of public libraries and the prohibitively high cost of books, many Paraguayan communities have infrequent access to informational and reading materials. Thus, many librarians in Paraguay do not possess the necessary resources, training, nor contacts to run successfully the community institutions placed in their charge. Often, school libraries exist without pertinent educational materials and/or caretakers or are managed by teachers lacking professional training as librarians.

The two-day library workshop seeks to introduce librarians and educators, and their Peace Corps counterparts, to the basic skills of library management, including book classification and catalogue organization, book maintenance and upkeep, systems of lending, and methods of fundraising. Participants will also learn how to integrate school libraries and story-related activities into daily classroom curriculum, improving language arts in education and fostering a culture of reading among students. The knowledge and skills gained by the librarians and teachers in the workshop will serve, ideally, the entire community, providing greater access to available books, educational resources, and information and expanding opportunities for schools, businesses, and organizations.

Yours in librarianship,
Denise in Paraguay