The Library has launched a community journals program. (CHAT News Photo/Ross Lavigne)

By Chris Brown

At the public library

Journals will be a community-wide memento of 2021

Jan 27, 2021 | 1:17 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Closed to the public, the Medicine Hat Public Library is finding new ways to keep interacting with the community and community members with each other.

The library launched Community Journals last week for patrons to check out and fill with writings and drawings.

“They can just write and add to whatever else that somebody else has written in them,” says adult and community librarian Miranda Leduc. “So there’s a few varieties just to reach different types of people and the idea is just at the end of the year hopefully have a little memento of 2021. Hopefully, it’s better than 2020 is kind of what we’re going for.”

After filling three or four pages, people then return the journals for the next person to check out and fill on their own.

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Adult and community librarian Miranda Leduc says there are five theme journals open to anyone – Artbook, Cookbook, Memories of Medicine Hat, Creative Writing and Ongoing Story.

“The Ongoing Story is a little bit different it’s still writing but the idea is there’s a prompt in it and it’s supposed to lead one person into the next person’s story so that they all continue in a flow and see how that goes,” says Leduc.

There are three other journals exclusively for teens – Artbook, Ongoing Story and Fandom, where Leduc says teens can choose to write or draw about pop culture phenomenons like Marvel, for instance.

She says the teen ones are to give teens their space because they can be a vulnerable population right now and they “really need their own space in order to grapple with what’s going on with the world and connecting with one another.”

The journals are available for checkout and filling now and Leduc says they’ll be placed on the library shelves in 2022 for reading.

For more information on the program visit the MHPL website.