Bookmarkable
This Week at the Library
Library OnDemand – Available anytime you like
Your doorway into live and archived programs. Arts & Culture, Career & Finance, Community Matters, Writers and more!
Tabletop Games – Tuesday, Jan. 24, 6 – 7:45 p.m.
Join us at Monticello Library for a fun-filled evening with family members and friends, old and new, and become a part of the Johnson County tabletop gaming community. Kids, teens and adults can enjoy a variety of games together, including collaborating to escape the Forbidden Island, getting creative with a round of Dixit, or strategizing their way to victory as King of Tokyo! Discover and learn new games from our collection or bring your personal favorite to share. Come and go as you please. Refreshments are provided. Each month, our gaming librarians will feature a family-friendly game and teach you how to play it. Monticello’s featured game for January is King of Tokyo.
Movie and Discussion: “Class of COVID-19” – Thursday, Jan. 26, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Join American Public Square and the Johnson County Library at the Central Resource Library for a screening of the documentary film "Class of COVID-19," which features a select group of students and teachers who show resilience during the first 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Legislative Coffee – Saturday, Jan. 28, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Discover what’s percolating in the Kansas Legislature. Representatives and Senators with constituents in Johnson County will discuss the new legislative session, followed by Q&A at the Monticello Library. You bring the questions; we provide the coffee and doughnuts. Registration is not required to attend in-person.
elementia submissions due soon!
Deadline Approaching
Are you considering submitting your original poetry, short stories, essays, comics, or artwork for publication in elementia—our literary arts magazine published to represent and uplift young adults. Just a reminder, the Feb. 1 deadline is approaching.
This Issue's Theme
Issue xx theme: Cycles
From the biological life cycle to seemingly unbreakable habits, we are surrounded by cycles.
We are told that everything has a beginning and an end, but what about everything in between? From growth cycles to menstrual cycles to thought cycles, our lives are impacted by endless hoops. Is it possible to escape a cycle? Describe the cycles that should have been broken by now. Search for loopholes and travel through them. Which cycles are you trying to break and why?
Cycles go beyond the individual and into greater society as cycles of oppression, and into the natural world as the migration cycles of animals and the phases of the moon. What cycles do we see perpetuate for generations? How do events cycle through history as it “repeats itself”? Where do we see cycles within cycles?
Everything starts somewhere. Cycles are found in the start button of washing machines and tales of origin. Speak on the origins of things that have not been questioned. Where have the beliefs that you hold as an individual originated? What about the beliefs held as a society? Explore the cycles your identity was born of.
Predict what the ending will be or choose your own finale. Does death mean the end of a cycle? What beginnings can the end provide for us? Discover what propels these cycles to continue. Explore unfathomable cycles and perpetual cycles, like the Ouroboros and its tail.
Admire the visual cycles and illusions we see in daily life. From the Fibonacci sequence to Penrose Stairs to a nautilus shell, there’s beauty in numerical cycles. With the Krebs cycle, acceleration of wheels, and the law of Conservation of Mass, explore the greater impact of an individual cycle. Understand what the cycles in your life mean to you.
Submit your original poetry, short stories, essays, comics, or artwork through February 1 every year.
Bookmark Design Winner Now Introducing Daughter to Library
As a kindergartner in 1999, Mary Clow won Johnson County Library’s bookmark design contest for her age group, with the message “I like the Library.”
Now married and mom to 1-year-old Isabella, Clow is having a wonderful time introducing her daughter to Johnson County Library.
“More than 20 years later, I love getting to share the Library with my own daughter,” Clow wrote in an email to Library staff. “Isabella is a huge fan of our weekly trips to the Library and loves getting to pick books from the shelves herself. Thank you for all you do, and for sharing books with my family for over two decades.”
That’s just the kind of communication from patrons that warms Librarians’ hearts.
Clow grew up in Overland Park and Lenexa, where her mother took her and her sibling regularly on weekends to the Central or Oak Park branches.
“We checked out books and movies,” Clow recalled. “Pretty early on, mom had to implement the rule that we could only check out as many books as we could carry. My favorite book as a kid was The Big Red Barn.”
As an adult, she’s now enjoying reading that classic by Margaret Wise Brown to her daughter.
She doesn’t have a vivid memory of creating the winning bookmark but knows her mother sought out those types of fun Library activities that she could do at home. She remembers there was a reception for the winners. She now flexes her creative muscles with cross-stitching and other crafts.
Clow became an avid reader and remains a fan of young adult fiction, especially books by John Green and Maureen Johnson. She graduated from Shawnee Mission West High School and got a degree in elementary education from Pittsburg State University.
Even during college, Clow stayed connected to Johnson County Library during summers. She was a nanny one summer for a family with four children, ages 12, 10, 8 and six months.
“The Library programs were great for them, just finding free stuff to do,” she recalled. She took the youngest to Storytimes while the older children found books and enrichment. The family lived closest to the Leawood branch, but Clow said they checked the calendar for different programs and visited a number of branches.
“There were MakerSpace activities that the older kids really liked,” she said. “It was really great to have stuff for that whole range of ages. I also did the summer reading program with them.”
After college graduation she worked as a substitute teacher for several Johnson County school districts before she was hired as a math teacher at Westridge Middle School in Overland Park.
She taught math for a year but realized it wasn’t the best fit. Since 2017, she’s worked as the director of children’s ministries for Lenexa United Methodist Church, and that’s been very fulfilling.
She and her husband Nicholas, a civil engineer at Black and Veatch, live in Shawnee, where they frequent the Shawnee Library branch. They regularly use the Library app and often put books on hold.
Isabella is just getting to the age where she is aware of books being read to her, and Clow looks forward to helping her learn to appreciate books and reading.
“I was definitely raised going to the Library,” Clow says, adding that it’s gratifying to see that tradition extend to a new generation.
And who knows? Maybe in a few years, Isabella will follow mom’s example and also enter the bookmark contest with her own creative design.
16 Civil War veterans - 1905
Museum Memories
It’s another grand Throwback Thursday when we encourage you to time travel through Johnson County's history. JoCoHistory is a collaborative presentation of the history from the Johnson County Museum, Johnson County Library and many JoCoHistory partners. Explore historical photographs and documents about the people, places and organizations of Johnson County, Kansas, from the 19th century to the present.
Collection spotlight: Johnson County Museum
About this collection: The Johnson County Museum has a wide range of images dating from the late 19th century to the current day. A major focus of the collection centers on individuals and groups of people in domestic, recreational, scholarly and business settings.
Rosetta Stone
Stretch all of your language-learning muscles: listening, reading, writing and speaking! The Rosetta Stone Library Solution teaches through context clues rather than grammar and translation. Learn new material in core lessons, do activities to reinforce what you've learned, and wrap up units by chatting in a simulated conversation. Speech recognition gives you interactive feedback, plus your progress will sync across all of your devices!
Storytimes are Back!
Did you miss Storytimes during our brief break in December? We did, too! We are excited to once again welcome back Storytimes to 10 branches and online. Storytime start dates and schedules are tailored to each individual branch, so be sure to check the Events page or the Spring Program Guide for specific details. Check out the Storytime FAQ for all the details on how to attend and which Storytime variety is right for your child’s age group and developmental abilities. See you soon at Storytime!
This Week at the Library
Library OnDemand – Available anytime you like
Your doorway into live and archived programs. Arts & Culture, Career & Finance, Community Matters, Writers and more!
Tabletop Games – Tuesday, Jan. 17, 6 – 7:45 p.m.
Join us at Central Resource Library for a fun-filled evening with family members and friends, old and new, and become a part of the Johnson County tabletop gaming community. Kids, teens and adults can enjoy a variety of games together, including collaborating to escape the Forbidden Island, getting creative with a round of Dixit, or strategizing their way to victory as King of Tokyo! Discover and learn new games from our collection or bring your personal favorite to share. Come and go as you please. Refreshments are provided. Each month, our gaming librarians will feature a family-friendly game and teach you how to play it. Central's featured game for January is Carcassonne.
Two Chapters Book Club – Wednesday, Jan. 18, 4 – 5 p.m.
Come read with us at Central Resource Library! A librarian will read aloud the first two chapters of a favorite book and you can decide to check out a copy to take home if you like it. If the chapters are short, we might sample more. We’ll have snacks and activities related to the book. Ages 7-11.
Legislative Coffee – Saturday, Jan. 21, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Discover what’s percolating in the Kansas Legislature. Representatives and Senators with constituents in Johnson County will discuss the new legislative session, followed by Q&A at the Corinth Library. You bring the questions; we provide the coffee and doughnuts. Registration is not required to attend in-person.
Kansas Day Celebration – Saturday, Jan. 21, 1 – 5 p.m.
Let’s celebrate Kansas! This family-friendly event at Central Resource Library will include live music, old-timey games and a chance to show off your Kansas trivia knowledge. Enjoy a slice of birthday cake and check out the new Kids Area at Central Resource Library. Come and go anytime between 1-5 p.m. and see what Kansas has to offer!
Young Adult Literary Council – Saturday, Jan. 21, 2 – 3 p.m.
Teens are invited to join the Young Adult Literary Council at the Gardner Library to share favorite books, pick up advanced reader copies of teen books to read and review, and participate in other fun activities such as author visits, game days, event planning and more. Meet new people and receive volunteer credit hours for your time with us.