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Library OnDemand – Available anytime you like.

Live Your Healthiest Life Fall Classes – Tuesdays, Oct. 10 – Nov. 14, 10:30 – 11 a.m.

Fall into some healthy habits!  Join us weekly at Central Resource Library and feel better in 2023.

Oct. 10: Exercise – How much and what kind do I need?
Oct. 17: Exercise – Your way, your pace.
Oct. 24: Quitting tobacco and changing behaviors.
Oct. 31: How do I stop? Step by step.
Nov. 7: Ready? Let’s do this!
Nov. 14: The new tobacco-free you.

Tabletop Games – Tuesdays, Oct. 10, Nov. 14, & Dec. 12, 6 – 7:45 p.m.

Join us at Central Resource Library for a fun-filled event with family and friends and become a part of the Johnson County tabletop gaming community. Discover new games from our collection or bring your personal favorite to share – you might get creative with a round of Dixit, collaborate to escape the Forbidden Island or strategize your way to victory as King of Tokyo! Come and go as you please. Refreshments are provided.

READ to A Dog with Pets For Life – Wednesday, Oct. 11, 3:30 – 5 p.m.

Join us at the Corinth Library for The Reading Education Assistance Dogs (R.E.A.D.) program improves children’s reading and communication skills by employing a powerful method: reading to a registered therapy dog or cat! These animals volunteer with their owner/handlers as a team. Please register for this event. 

Free Day at the Johnson County Museum – Thursday, Oct. 12, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Your Johnson County Library card is your ticket to a free day at the Johnson County Museum! Show your Library card for free entry or sign up for a card on site with Library staff available to assist you. This free day is sponsored by the Library to encourage our patrons to view the temporary exhibit “TRAINS: Transportation and the Transformation of Johnson County” on display through Jan. 13, 2024.

Candidate Forum: Shawnee Mission School Board Candidates– Thursday, Oct. 12, 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.

Join us at the Lenexa City Center Library for this event. The Shawnee Mission and Blue Valley Post will be hosting 11 nights of local candidate forums ahead of the Nov. 7 general election, giving Johnson County voters a chance to hear directly from the candidates who want to represent them in city government and on school boards. The full list of events is here.

And much more happening this week … 

Discover how music can have a positive effect on your child’s development. Kristi Hanson, music therapist and owner of Stepping Stones KC, will share practical ways music can affect behavior, emotional regulation, and keep early learning fun! Designed for caregivers of children ages 0-6. All caregivers welcome.

Oct. 18, 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Central Resource Library
Register »

When the Merriam Plaza Library opens next year, it will include a drive-thru, state-of-the-art technology, early literacy space in the kids section, and all the other amenities one would expect in a new branch built at a cost of nearly $14 million.

Adhering to patron feedback, the new branch at 6120 Slater St. will also have abundant natural light, a warm wood ceiling and a “green” roof with vegetation that provides a habitat for pollinators.

Yet the art integrated into the design of Merriam Plaza — which is replacing the aging Antioch Library — may well provide the most eye-catching connection to nature.

After evaluating nearly 180 submissions, the Johnson County Public Art Commission last year commissioned projects from Emily Alvarez of Kansas City, Missouri, and Sage Vaughn of Los Angeles.

Alvarez’s four-panel indoor mural will include deep blue teal and lime green among its vibrant colors and will have raised plexiglass panels featuring plants and side profiles of residents of diverse races.

The mural also has a portion with people standing on roots to pay homage to the groundbreaking work of the Webb family, leaders of the 1940s movement to desegregate schools in Merriam. The hardiness of the prairie grass she features celebrates the “community aspect of developing roots in your community that make it easier to withstand hardship,” Alvarez said.

With its emphasis on diversity, the art commission carved out a portion of the budget to include Alvarez’s work. She is awed and humbled at the confidence the commissioners placed in her against much more experienced applicants.

Vaughn’s outdoor installation features his sketches fabricated into four prairie flowers in two groupings of two apiece. The metal sculptures, some reaching taller than the building itself, are made of Corten Steel, which has a weathered, rust-colored exterior.

The flowers featured in the installation include Mexican Hat (prairie coneflowers) and a sunflower variety. Vaughn collaborated with a computer effects designer who loaded a 3D model of the Merriam Plaza building into software that, by simulating how sunlight would hit the sculptures, helped determine the placement of the installations.

Vaughn considers a project for a local library as the “absolute pinnacle” of public art and said his goal is “to take some of those flowers that are common and make them remarkable, with the idea being that it's a public space, that it is something that can help inspire memories and kind of make things locatable even for the very, very young people who access that space.”

The green roof captivated Vaughn.

“Geez man, this is perfect,” he thought. “That’s my whole jam. It’s flowers and butterflies and insects and birds. It was really fun to just say great, you guys set it up, let me just hit it, and if you guys are into this you are into it, if not, I totally get it.”

The height and scale of Vaughn’s pieces is an aspect of the work that will spark intrigue and conversations among patrons, said commission Chairman Larry Meeker. He said the colors in Alvarez’s mural might also spark debates among visitors who love the vibrancy and others who think a library should be more muted.

The fact that both of the art projects are open to interpretation is exactly what public art is supposed to do, Meeker said, offering a “double barreled” benefit to the library to complement its collection.

“Good pieces of art are open-ended,” he said. “That is also what makes a good piece of literature.”

Art installation is set to begin at the site this fall.