I want to say thanks to the NITTTR for holding this training program and also thanks to our coordinator Dr. Ravichandran.

I am lucky to have had this opportunity, and me and my colleagues got a lot from this training. I found the lectures and the training practical and visiting many libraries very useful. I also learned a lot from the teaching skills of our Indian teachers – they are excellent, and they are wise, modest people, easy to touch your brain and heart.

I appreciate that Indian ladies taught me to be more patient in life. I always said no woman worked hard like Iraqi women – for many years we hold big responsibility at home and at work…but now I am sure Indian women do more and more.

I loved to see a church and next to it there is a mosque then a temple, and all people live safely with each other without any fanaticism.

Another important thing is that my language became better because I kept speaking English for all 2 months, and I am so glad to have 26 friend from many countries – I loved them and they taught me also so many things.

Avelina from Philippines was the oldest age among us, but she was the youngest one in her spirit and heart. She woke up early morning at 4am to do her sport run round the institute, and each day she went to church and when back she woke us up with red flowers for each one. She is wonderful grandmother librarian.

Moe Min Than from Myanmar is a nice young lady. She had a hard time to speak English but she tried to learn more and more and we loved always when she said “no good” when she meant not good. She loved dancing and she brought the joy and happiness to the training group. Really, all the Myanmar group’s 6 trainers are wonderful people – I didn’t know anything about this country and now I have 6 friends from it. I miss them a lot.

Some of my colleagues in training are members in IFLA and they encourage me to be a member. I am sure it is necessary for me to be …so I will be.

Finally, I want to say bye my wonderful friends and I hope to meet you again – good luck for everybody andhope that 2009 will bring all joy and good future for all the training group!

Thanks to my friends Annam, Ibrahim, Yugni, Bahia, Reem, Joseph, Nasta, Mory, Avelina, Aung Naing, Moe, Bavunndorj, Dev i, Gholam, Khtoibu, Kebaenesh, Kennedy, Khin win, Moise, Mabakuena, Mildred, Moe Min Than, Mohammed, Muborak, Nilifar, Thida, Thuzar.

Thanks for reading my blog… I hope you enjoyed it.

Regards,
Thana

Also, while we feel this is the last week for us to be together, we spent a lot of time working in computer room and downloading our photos and exchanging them … sometime we kept chatting and drinking tea & coffee till 3 or 4 am.

At Monday 8th we went to class as usual and at 9:30 we found books in lib & info sci for us to buy. The institute give us 1000 Rupies to buy books. They also gave another 1 thousand Rupies to print and bind our project and to also buy a removable disk.

Then Dr. Ravi checked our projects before printing and gave us some notes to do – some of us was have problems in English language so we helped them in their projects.

8th Dec. was the 1st day feast (Eid) for Muslims. We called our family for congratulations, then we kept busy.

Tuesday 9th Dec. it was vacation in India for Muslim Eid, so we used it to go outside for lunch, then shopping and then print our projects.

Wednesday 10th Dec. we took a photo of all the group with the coordinator close to the name of institute INTTTR, then went to class for project presentations.

Thursday 11th Dec. it was the last day for us, and we went to get our certificates.

It was a wonderful day. At this time I felt happy & sad at the same time, happy that we will be back home soon and we get certificate from (INTTTR), and sad that we leave nice people we know in India and our new friends from many countries.

The head of the institute and our coordinator give a speech first, then they allowed us to say what we want to say about this training program. 1st we nominate Joseph from Uganda to speak specially his English language is excellent. Then Yugni from Fiji Island talked briefly, then I did my speech. I thanked the institute & our coordinator and said that I found this training program very interesting for me as a teacher also as specialist in library & information science.

We next went for special good food for this day, and the insitiute head & our teachers shared lunch with us, and we kept take photos for remembering these days.

At evening, some of us start arranging our luggage to travel the next day…. Friday 12th Dec. it was so nice day and I used each minute in this day. I woke early, went for shopping and then to the beach (I do love going to the beach). Me & Anamn and Bahia from Palestine spent nice time there. Then we back to say bye for Joseph & Nasta, as they are the first to leave, going back home Uganda (they left at 2:30 pm). When the car came to take them to the airport, everybody was sad and crying to say bye for them … it was a hard moment.

Later, I went back for more shopping. I bought gifts so that we will celebrate Yugni (from Fiji) & DV (from Mauritius) & Mobarak (form Uzbakistan) birthdays. We also collected money from all to buy gifts (shirts & t-shirts, and chicken for food)) for all the men that work in the guest house – they did their best for us and they deserve more but it is simple thing to say thank you! We did a wonderful celebration everybody dance – I loved how the Indian men danced. After 10.30 pm, another group must leave .. our best friend Bahia & Reem from Palestine – it was so sad moment – we do know how hard it is to meet again. When the car came to take them the tears become more & more, so while the car try to go I asked the driver if I can go with them to airport then back with u .. he said yes.. So I jumped into the car as did my friend Anaam and young men works in the kitchen to help in holding bags. When we came back after midnight we were tired & sad but we started to arrange our luggage to be ready for leaving tomorrow night Saturday 13th December.

Dr. Ravi gave up his weekend so he came and spent the day with us and our other friends that had not traveled yet. At evening he said bye with all kind feeling he have.

Then me & Aram went for city center (big mall) to say bye for my Indian friends Ajas & Laura – they have bazaar (alla al din bazaar) that sells silver, so I did the last silver shopping from them.

When back at our guset house, me & Annam did the last prepare for luggage and drank tea – we felt we could not eat dinner because we were sad & worried as we will leave in the next 2 hours.

I knocked on all my friends doors to say bye for my them and I gave them small things for remembering and they did the same..

Tears say more than words can say, when car come to take me & Anaam everybody was ready to come with us to airport. It was a wonderful sad & happy moment in my life as I felt their love … also men working in the kitchen came too. I didn’t forget to take photos in this moment – it was the last photo.

The time was slow at the airport, and when the plane took off I said inside “bye Chennai, bye nice Indian people, thanks for wonderful time and sharing sad with happy feeling.”

I will write more about this wonderful experience in my next last blog about India.

Thanks for reading my blog….

Thana

After returning from Bangalore, we started classes again at 23th nov. It was raining heavily all this week, so we didn’t go out of the institute. Even our food was served in the guest house to not be wet.

We all start to work seriously on our project as we had no more time for us to finish it.

At 26th nov. our lecture was about the Future library by professor B. Ramesh Babu. It was so interesting a lecture, and we discussed the different kind of libraries – traditional library, automated library, digital library, virtual library, Hybrid Library. He focused on what skills are required for future Digital library. At evening, the same lecturer talked about web OPACs as an effective tool for information and retrieval.

The most important thing this week was visiting the central library of the Indian Institute of Teaching, Madras at 27th nov. Dr. Harish Chandran invited us to spend the day in the library. He is really wonderful and a wise librarian and well known in India. This visit was so interesting for us. We worked practically in the library – I loved working in circulation counter, as this is the 1st time for me to be librarian not teacher. After lunch we visited the computer center. It is the network operation center for this institute and you can get more information about it by using http://iihpce.iitm.ac.in.

The next week start at Monday 1st December. Our lecture this day was about Barcode, at evening we worked practically in bar-coding.

Tuesday 2nd Dec. we visited so many places , starting with visiting Madras Record, the main place for saving all government records in Madras (Chennai). There are 3 kinds of record – current records (it is still new that it only before 5 years); almost current records (less than 30 years); and non current records (after passing 30 years). It is a big place and contains a preservation department where many employees work on preserving records> We then went to visit a museum that had 4 buildings. The1st is for ancient India and they didn’t allow use of cameras; the 2nd is about natural history; the 3rd is for all kind of stones in India – I loved it that I can see emeralds and rubies in nature; and the 4th is for Art where we saw many art paintings by famous Indians.

For the next 2 days our lectures were about Green stone as a Digital library, and at evening we did practical work in how to create our on digital library by using green stone. It is so important for us, because all of us 27 partners in this training didn’t use green stone in our country. For me I heard about this for the 1st time, and I was hoping that we would work more in creating our library by green stone and leave working in project. I think almost of us know how to do a project but we no one had tried before to create our own digital library.

Friday 5th Dec. we got another interesting lecture about 2.0 library and blogs and how it is important to share with other librarians many thoughts and activities. By the way, all the lecturers and training partners know that I am sharing in Simmons blogs, so they keep read my blogs and they encourage me, and sometime when I introduce myself to a lecturer (we did that every day when a new lecturer came to class) he/she said ..ahh u are the blogger lady from Iraq……

Thank you for Simmons blog to offer me this chance and thanks to all who read my blogs!

Yours,
Thana

Wednesday, November 19, early morning (4 am) and everybody was awake and ready to go to railway station. It is big station full of passengers, and when the train came we took our seats. The train car had 28 seats and the training group are 27 with Dr. Ravi, our coordinator. I found all seats beside the windows are booked and I felt bad because I wanted to watch out along the way. Lucky for me that Noor al Dien Ibrahim (from Nigeria) give me his seat – he is a nice man who has done so many nice things for group.

After awhile the breakfast was ready and served, and then some of us went to see the view from the train door – that was wonderful for me – wow! The view outside is hard to describe. Green trees all over and we can see mountains from time to time. The fresh air smelled of many kinds of flowers, so I spent the four hours standing this way and not using my seat.

When we reached Bangalore, two buses were waiting to pick us up to go to the hotel. After one hour rest and lunch we went to Informatics India Limited. It is a private institute for digitizing resources – books, journals, with abstracting to articles. 20% of these resources can be used freely and 80% can be used by payment. The database is updated every day with links to other resources. For more information, visit http://www.informindia.co.in

Then we went shopping, after which we went to the ISKON temple, a big temple for Hindu people. We then went back to the hotel more than tired.

The next day we went to visit J.R.D. TATA Memorial Library / Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. It was established in 1911, and this library is regarded as one of the best scientific and technical libraries in India. The library has a collection of 175,000 books & manuals, 186,000 bound volumes of periodicals, 6000 theses & 85,500 reports (there are also CDs, etc.).

The National Bureau of Higher Mathematics has recognized the institute library as the regional center for mathematics for the south region. They use DDC classification and computers are located at various locations mainly to access the OPAC with internet facilities and services. For more information about this library, visit http://www.library.iisc.ernet.in

What I loved in all Indian libraries I visited is that I found librarians who are so cooperative and you feel them love the work they do.

After lunch we went to a park (a big garden) that was very nice with so many old trees (you can find the date of birth for each tree). We enjoyed this place and saw many children come with school trip. We kept saying “Hi” for them and taking photos.

Then we went shopping and in Bangalore you can find so many kinds of souvenirs… At the end of the day, we went back to the hotel to be ready next day for another trip by car to Mysore.

We were ready at 7am for this trip, and the way was green green – we enjoyed it a lot. The first stop was in a big shop on the way for sale of so many wooden souvenirs – I heard Mysore is famous in good kinds of wood (sandal wood) and also for silks. We stopped to visit a temple, and when we reached Mysore went directly to a restaurant for food – Mysore food is delicious.

We next went to a big ZOO…then to the wonderful place called Mysore Palace. It is a maharajah’s home. Wow, it is a place that deserves a visit …the architecture outside & inside is incredible!

Then more wood shopping. Sellers started out by giving big prices, then we keep going in our way so they follow us give us lower prices and then lower until we agree to buy. The things hand made from wood are so nice. I found an expensive nice swing made from wood – ohhh I loved it, but no way to take it to Iraq.

On our way back to Bangalore we stopped in a big garden in Brindavan that was close to a dam. There, they did wonderful shows using colored lights. After the show, we had our dinner and continued our trip to back to Bangalore. We reached hotel at 12 midnight. It was wonderful trip to Mysore.

Next morning we checked out of the rooms, left hotel at 10:30 am to visit the University Industrial & Technological Museum. It is amazing in the way that they display the technology specially for school students, and interesting that made you learn how the sciences developed and that it is full of so many funny things suitable for all ages.

Then we went for lunch to be ready for train travel back to Chennai. We were all feeling sorry to leave Bangalore – it is nice city and we spent wonderful time there and I will not forget it all my life.

Best for everybody,
Thana

From November 10-14 our lectures were about “soft skills.” I was so tired on the first day I didn’t go to class (lazy student) – that happened for the first time in my life that I am absent from a training class. At the time of break, my friend came to see if I was well and told me that I was missing this interesting lecture. So I changed my clothes directly and went to the class. The lecture was about motivation management.

In the evening, Dr. Rajendran lectured about stress management. What is the meaning of stress, and types of stress – psychological stress, social stress, and also the causes of stress. He then discussed how to deal with stress. Next, he gave us a stress symptom checklist to fill out to know if we are stressed or not. About me, no stress while I am enjoy my time here and learning more.

The next day our lecture was about “presentation skills,” done by Dr. Mahadaran, a human resources manager. Our evening lecture was about “presentation skills and behavior,” by Dr. Amuthalakshmi. She explained to us a Johnnie window and SWOT analysis. She gave us pictures and we must say a story about this picture and what we see. I loved this lesson and enjoyed it as did my colleagues – the way of her teaching and discussing is so attractive and we didn’t feel the time going by in the lecture.

At the end of lecture I wrote down a statement she said: “Observe around you and be thankful for all that you have in this transitory lifetime.”

The Next day Dr. Giridharan lectured us about team building and team work and how it is necessary for success in our work, especially in a library. Our evening lecture was about interpersonal relationships and transaction analysis. She was also so good a teacher. Thanks for all of them.

I appreciate Indian teachers because they are excellent. I learned more here about teaching skills but I found ladies better than males, because their English pronunciation is clearer.

Monday morning, November 17th, the lecture subject was “World class library for building global information society” by Dr. Harish Chandra.

We discussed the characteristics of information society, information power, information filtering, then how can we make our library not only for storing books but as a gateway to knowledge.

Our evening lecture was interesting too – it was about bibliographic data exchange formats, MARC, and the machine-readable catalog. Dr. V. Chandrakumar of the Library & Information Department of the University Madras presented the lecture. He discussed bibliographic data elements, bibliographic standards, international formats, data field structure, and various consortia – DELNET, MALIBNET, etc. The lecture was so good and full of information and the lecturer did his best to outline information for us.

The next day, Tuesday, the lecture was about HTML and hosting a web page on the Internet. It is so nice that we can create our page and then host it on net.

At evening there was no class because we must be ready next day early morning for traveling to Bangalore.

Greetings to everybody…. Thana

Monday morning November 10th our lecture was about TQM, total quality management. Dr. Harishchandra (head of central library, Institute of Technology Madras) gave the lecture. We didn’t meet him when we visited the central library because he was out for a work meeting.

The lecturer focused on: What quality means. Why we need quality. Quality design. Quality of performance. Also, he asked us about how we found the central library and our points about it. He wanted to know if this visit effected us to improve our libraries in our countries and he talked about his experience when he visited the library of Cambridge University. Then he showed us how we can use many sites which we need to use as a librarian .

He next showed us his web page full of interesting things. It is http://www.harishchandra.com

The last message he said to us was “Do not be afraid of growing slowly, but be afraid of standing still.”

Want to say a big thank you Dr. Harishchandra – all of us in the training group appreciated what he did for us, and we hope for him a long life full of success.

At evening, we went to visit the American Library Chennai. It is in the United States Consulate, Gemini Circle, Chennai, India. All visitors are requested to conform to security regulations and produce a valid photo ID at the entrance. And, camera is not allowed to use!!! For that we haven’t picture there.

This library offers a wide range of resources, programs and services to provide accurate and up to date information on contemporary American government, its policies, institutions, society, culture & values, literature, history, international relations, US economy & global issues. The library serves people from all walks of life – student, teachers, politicians, etc.

Collection is more than 14000 books, 140 scholarly journals, and electronic databases which provide access to more than 10,000 full text journals and 30,000 other electronic documents. Also there are about 500 video programs and multimedia CDROMs. They also have US government publications, newspapers, and special collections on American studies.

The collection is classified in DDC classification and you can access the catalog at http://americanlibrary.in.library.net For more information you can visit it using http://chennai.usconsulate.gov

At 6:30 we were ready to celebrate Mildred’s birthday – she is from Zambia. We spent a nice time together, listening to music and dancing, and so many talents appear this night! Happy Birthday, Mildred!

Thana

Saturday morning November 8th after breakfast we went for shopping at the Saravana store. It is 7 floors with 1 ground & 1 underground and an excellent place for shopping. Everything is there. If you plan to spend 4 thousand rupis, you will spend 8 thousand!!!! As my friend Yogani (from Fiji ) said, India is the place for shopping till you lay down.

Sunday morning November 9th we had a trip. The bus was ready at 8:30 am, early for us. The first stop, after one hour of driving, was in a park. It’s a place for huge number of crocodiles & snakes. For me, it is the first time to see a crocodile. Some people even tried to put a snake on our necks – Dr Ravi did this with his son.

After snakes and crocodiles, we continued our trip to visit some temples. The first one was a cave temple. After lunch, we went to another temple named Mahabalipuram, then on to the third one – a Shore temple. All of them are close to each other, and it was amazing to see all of that in the same day.

After that, we went to the beach. Ohhh, it is the favorite place for me, the Indian Ocean. While we were tired from this long tour, we had a fun time together. Before sunset, we left the beach. I was hoping to stay more time…..but…

I am lucky to have chance visiting India.

Yours, Thana

For that, everything was ready to do a small celebration in Chennai. I bought my Sari and my Iraqi friend Anaam bought me a cake as gift for my birthday. We spent a wonderful time with the training group. In addition, Dr Ravi. and his family come to share with us this celebration. All of them were really wonderful, and we heard Arabic songs, and had Indian with dancing with each one of the group showing us his country dancing. All of them was really wonderful and nice, and I want to say THANK U for everybody for sharing me this time, and thanks for gifts, but truly meeting them is my gift.

Friday morning November 7th we had a tour of the British Council Library. It is a public library, and there are 9 branches for it in India. Collections are focused on UK and promote British ideas. The collection contains books, music CDs, DVDs, and Journals. There is no local cataloging because the books come from UK ready for shelving using DDC classification. Sure it is an automated library where computers are available. Only the children’s collection is classified according to age. The main goal of this library is to satisfy users needs and to provide services in all of the 9 regions. The member types are: Organizations (like NITTTR); College students; School students; NGOs members; and Individuals. Many services are available …like reservations, inter library loan facilities, and on borrowing books. There is also a staff ready for helping.

Also, there is a program for marketing workshops – like workshops on interview skills, etc.

As a librarian I found this library a model in furnishings & architecture. While it is a small library, it is a good place to read in that most libraries are closed with walls, but here you can find the sunlight give you more comfort.

So if you want to read, visit the BCL. If you want to study, visit the Central Library at Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

The last thing that I didn’t like – we were not allow to use cameras, and for that I have only 1 picture outside the building…enjoy it.

Thana

We keep progressing in MS front page for making web pages – much practice needed. Wednesday, November 5th was the last lecture in this subject, but practicing didn’t end yet, and we will work on our front page and our lecturer, Mr. Malliga, will check it. Also, Mr. Shanmughaneethi will give us more information about HTML…and he will check what we did.

Wednesday afternoon we went to visit the Central Library at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. This library site is in a big green forest, it’s a natural green forest so we saw amazing big trees. There are many institutes close to this library.

This library is open from 8am till 12.00 midnight. The membership eligibility are:

• Individual members
• Industrial associate
• Corporate members
• Outside members
• Special members

All kinds of resources are available, with so many facilities: self check out, e-books, drop for RFID, a digital knowledge center, a children’s library corner, and an I-portal for accessing the collection. There is also a student discussion hall, a media resource center, photocopying and wireless networking.

Visit this library, you will really enjoy it, use: http://www.cenlib.iitm.ac.in

Till next blog, my greetings,

Thana

October 30
On Thursday morning our first lecture was on Library Networking & Internet Facilities, given by Dr. G. Kulanthaivel.

He discussed what is information & communication technology, and about CBT, CBI, WBI and also storage devices. Then we discussed what are the major components of communication – and then LANs, WANs…etc.

At evening there was no class, so we enjoy being free. A small group went to visit GRT House of India Jeweler for silver & gold…it’s amazing and so hard to choose because everything is WOW – so many designs and models, especially the pieces containing stones. I saw chairs made of silver and table & chairs for dining room. We also saw an amazing swing made of silver. They didn’t allow me to take pictures for this place but everyone can visit this place using the web ….(GRT) Google it ..u will enjoy it sure.

On my way back, I found people dancing in the street and cars covered by flowers. I was so happy to see that I guessed they were celebrating a wedding…but while I kept looking I saw a man laying inside this car was dead and covered with flowers too. I was surprised so I asked the man who drive the car why those people dancing if he is dead. He respond it is Hindu culture. Oh, my, it is strange for us. Then I said okay, may this man now have a rest from this hard life for that they are happy for him?

October 31
Friday morning our lecture was about web technology, web architecture, and internet topology. Then we learned about internet protocols and HTML. The lecturer usually uses Data show to explain – he teaches us how to create our own page as an exercise, then he asked us to do our page. After, he came to check our work at evening lecture. At evening, he gave us more information about the topic – it was a wonderful lecture and all of the group found it useful.

We have holiday for Saturday & Sunday….early morning Saturday Dr. Ravi. come to our dorm – he wanted to check if we need something because he knows five from training group have flu. He took the sick students to hospital for treatment. He is so nice a man do his best for us .

Till next blog…greetings to everybody

Thana