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... and a little about me |
I had completed 24 of the required 36 semester hours from my M.L.I.S. at
Florida State University in 1993-94 (working full time and/or two jobs while doing it--I
know, I'm slow or I would have finished), and I quit in August of 1994 to come home to Alabama (to Cleburne County, and the tiny town of Heflin)to be my mother's
caregiver. She had Alzheimer's, and she died in April 1996, four months after we had placed her in a nursing home.
I was going to tell you about this site and ended up telling you
about myself and the other site. I started a couple of pages of
this site at the other one. The Library Links page has been there
for over a year--maybe a year and a half. It's been growing more
especially since I've been back in library school (since Jan. 1998). And the American Poetry page began in the Spring of 1998 as I was working on that project for my Humanities Reference class. I had thought I would keep these pages at my other site
as a respite for caregivers, but they tend to grow too much, and
I want to have space to add more at the other site, and I don't
want to have too much there that isn't really related to AD, caregiving, and memories of my mother.
So I started this Geocities page when a friend was starting one
here and wanted some help. I had been thinking about it for a
long time anyway--recommending that others start their pages here
but hadn't tried Geocities myself. I had
also been thinking I wanted to do more pages like my American
poetry page on different areas within the humanities. I had a
difficult time deciding about what to do my project on; I had
thought of Appalachian literature and/or Southern literature
and/or Appalachian and/or Southern poetry, children's literature, and writing resources as well as American poetry.
Since I have an interest in all of these and would like to find
Internet resources about them and study them all more myself, I
began thinking about doing a site like this. I thought it would
be good respite for caregivers, too, but it would surely outgrow
and threaten to take over my other site if I left it there.
My humanities reference class was such a great class, and it is
the real inspiration for this site. Each person in my class did
a project on different areas of the humanities, as I did mine on
American poetry, and their presentations were all wonderful.
I hope my fellow students will build web sites based on their
presentations and let me know so I can link them here someday.
I had at first thought I might share some of my poetry here, and
some backgrounds I made that you could use for your web pages.
But maybe that's another web site. My poetry isn't good--
not real poetry--I know that. People like it at my other site,
but that's because it expresses the emotions they feel as caregivers
and family members watching someone they love fade from them
because of Alzheimer's Disease. That other site is pretty
important to me, though I started it before I knew anything
about HTML, with just the poems, a few pictures, a little of
my journal, and a few links to Alzheimer's resources.
Anyway, as I said, that site is most important, so you
can understand if I spend more time working on it than I will on this site.
But I want to do this one, not because I'm an expert in any area of
the humanities, but because I want to learn and to share so you can
learn or just have a nice place to get away and go exploring.
And yes, I'm still thinking of respite for the caregivers who visit
my other site--they are special, and what they're doing isn't easy.
I took care of my mother for just over a year, but some of them have taking
care of mothers, fathers, grandparents, husbands, or wives for many years--
they are my heroes.
Back to this site--forgive me if it's slow in developing--but
I still haven't caught up with email and updating the other one, as I
got really behind with all that while back in school, and with moving
twice since. But I do this site will be something helpful and
enjoyable for you all.
Hi! I'm Brenda Parris Sibley. I've just graduated from library school
(in fact I have a student off and on for the last 20 years--but that's another story--might tell
you all about it later), and I've been working two jobs: Network Cataloger at
Library Management Network and part-time as Cataloger
at Calhoun Community College,
both in Decatur, Alabama while back in school. I took my last 12 hours at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alabama and transferred them back to Florida State University to graduate
from there in December 1998. In January 1999, my husband
and I moved to Troy, Alabama, and from Jan-Sept. I was Cataloging Librarian at
Troy State University. I loved working there, but
moved back to Decatur to full-time at Calhoun Community College in Sept. 1999, as
Technical Services/Reference Librarian (and unofficial Webmaster).
I have another web site: A Year to Remember,
which is all about my mother and Alzheimers. I've been working
on it since around June 1996, just three months after her death.
It has received a lot of awards and reviews, and I hope it's being a help to some people--maybe helping them find out more about Alzheimer's and be more prepared than I was for caregiving.
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| It's me, but not really. It's--you know--Glamor Shots-- and four years ago. As I overheard my nieces' husbands say "It's amazing what they can do with a little makeup!" |
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at Amazon.com |
at Amazon.com |
at Amazon.com |