The Lakes District Museum Society is all set to launch its first book in half a century, and has now launched a social media poll to understand how many copies to print initially.
According to the museum鈥檚 curator Michael Riis-Christianson, the book is going through its final proofread, and the online poll is to establish the percentage of hardcover and softcover edition to be placed.
鈥淎t this point, our legion of Facebook followers seems pretty excited by it. We are excited because it鈥檚 the first book published by the museum society in a half-century,鈥� he said. 鈥淚nitial press run will likely be 500, 40 per cent of which will be hardcovers and we expect them to sell quickly.鈥�
The museum intends to continue logging responses until they place their first order.
After posting stories and photographs relating to the history of the Lakes District on its Facebook page, and through the Lakes District 亚洲天堂, the museum realized that the posts were very popular and sought after. However, the museum society also realized that not everyone used social media, and decided to curate all this information into a book to reach a wider audience, foster community pride, and encourage people of diverse backgrounds and cultures to take a more active role in preserving history.
鈥淲e have been working on this since last fall. Though many of the stories were written over the previous four years, we updated many of them last fall with new material that became available since we digitized our archives,鈥� said Riis-Christianson.
Publishing a book is a lot of work鈥攎ore than perhaps we had realized. Our proofreaders have read the draft manuscript so many times that I am sure sections of it are burned into their memories. FriesenPress, which also published 鈥溠侵尢焯� Lake & District: A History鈥� in 1973, has been great to work with, and I can鈥檛 say enough good things about our publishing specialist, Benjamin Fligg.
The museum society is hoping to receive the first copies of the book, which will be titled, 鈥淗istory Matters: Stories and Photographs from the Archives of the Lakes District Museum鈥�, in late August or early September.
鈥淭he book has been a labour of love for us. It contains more than 100 stories and photographs from the Lakes District鈥檚 colourful past. We hope people enjoy reading them as much as we loved writing them. Our society cares passionately about this area鈥檚 history and wants to share it with everyone because history really does matter,鈥� Riis-Christianson said. 鈥淚f you want to know where you鈥檙e going as a community, you need to understand how you got where you are now. The keys to the future are written in the past.鈥�
The book, which is being published by FriesenPress, who also also published 鈥溠侵尢焯� Lake & District: A History鈥� in 1973, is becoming a reality with the financial support from 亚洲天堂 Lake Community Forest Ltd. and the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako.
If you would like to order a copy please call the Lakes District Museum at 250-692-7450.
