SLIA: Going Great @ 8!

Today marks the eighth year anniversary of the blog. School Librarian In Action was born in 2005. To this day, I thank Von Totanes, the blog's "ninong" (godfather), for egging me to step out of the dark and explore the blogosphere. It has been a wild and successful ride. For the next few days, until the month ends, I will be posting eight blogging milestones of School Librarian In Action.

And while I go back to memory lane, brushing off online dusts from the blog's archive, I found an article written by Ronald Lim about my blogging exploits way back in 2006. Here is the link of the full article, Meet the Blograrian, which was featured in Manila Bulletin on 1 October 2006.

I remember being interviewed by Ronald Lim after my talk on blogging for librarians at the Manila International Book Fair. I was, at the time, blogging for over a year and the experience was exhilerating, like I was on uppers. Now I can say that, way back in 2006, I was professionally hungry. In the article, I was quoted as saying --

"I wanted a venue for my voice to be heard. I wanted to communicate with other people," she explains. "Librarianship is a very lonely and routinary profession. I’m not satisfied with my interaction with my fellow teachers and students. I wanted to have a wider reach."

Blogging has been, and still is, giving me opportunities to grow professionally and personally. I will expound on this in another post. But, as Mr. Lim wrote in the article --

Gagatiga says that maintaining her blog has empowered her like never before. When before she couldn’t understand how to manipulate HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML) — the codes needed to manipulate and maintain a website and a blog — she has now steadily increased her knowledge, and through her blog, has been able to reach people willing to teach her.

I have reached out to many and developed a professional network and online presence that would have been impossible if I stayed an anonymous blogger.

Lastly, I learned how to manage my time for blogging as well. Indeed, time and technology can be managed. Being constantly online is pretty cool and yes, it connects me to the world but there's also a world I need to connect with first and foremost: my self's own world and my family's. I said in the article --

"When I was just starting out, I almost let my blog run my life," she explains. "If I didn’t have kids, I would have been addicted. Just after I’d post, I’d wait for comments to show up. And if I happen to post at school, by the time I’d arrive at home, I’ll connect to the internet and check the comments I have."

Now, I know better. I still blog and with eight years blogging experience, I can say I am blogger who has grown wiser.