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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.
Did You Know? Johnson County Library Has “Did You Hear?” Podcast
Podcasting has become an increasingly popular communications tool for education and entertainment.
Since 2018, Johnson County Library has offered its own podcast, titled “Did You Hear?”
These digital recordings have proven to be a fun and creative way to share Library staffs' passion for what they do. Episodes offer a behind-the-scenes exploration of Library services, events and the collection, revealing how the Library is so much more than buildings with books.
Ninety-five episodes have generated nearly 20,000 downloads, averaging 200 per installment. The most popular, about the U.S. Census, garnered nearly 1,000 downloads. Other popular episodes include interesting topics like K-Pop, Return Bin Finds, Notable Books, the MakerSpace, Community Matters and Library Hacks. They are all available on the Library's website.
Interviewees have included an astronaut, award-winning authors, civic leaders and popular chefs. The 20-minute conversations, released monthly, take listeners on an audio journey of discovery.
Co-Hosts Dave Carson and Charles Hower make a great team and are excited for 2023.
“We really found our swing this year, our stride,” said Carson, who launched the podcast project in June 2018. The program has had several co-hosts but has built continuity and momentum since Hower signed on in early 2021.
Carson and Hower each bring unique skills to this endeavor. Carson has a master’s degree in educational technology and has been with Johnson County Library for almost 15 years, concentrating on web content development and multimedia production. In 2018 he realized podcasting could enhance what the Library was already doing with its website, videos and social media.
Hower was hired as a Monticello clerk in 2018 and became an information specialist at Central in March 2020. He has a music recording background and is an avid podcast listener.
Their first episode together in 2021 focused on what patrons could still do through the Library, despite COVID restrictions. The “Did You Hear?” podcast, available through the Podbean hosting service to all sorts of podcast apps, provided great Library outreach during the pandemic.
“It was connecting patrons to those resources, saying ‘Hey, we’re still here,’” Hower explained.
Hower personally learned a lot. “Getting to speak to people about their jobs and find out their backgrounds, I really enjoyed that early on,” he said. “Now, I think my favorite part is that it feels like I’m hanging out with friends and I get to chat with them.”
Carson appreciates how the Library's administration has supported the initiative, providing equipment for high-quality audio.
“I’m a lifelong learner like everybody is here,” Carson said. “All the different people who come in here, we have a general sense of what they do, but when you get into the specifics, that’s where the real meat of it is. It’s so enjoyable.”
They began 2022 by interviewing a Library staffer preparing to retire and another newly hired, comparing their perspectives. Other installments shined a spotlight on summer reading and the Writers Conference.
They are excited for 2023 and are planning their next installments. They would love to hear your feedback through this brief survey.
“If we can help people see everything that the Library is involved with, I think that helps break down stereotypes,” Carson said, “showing who the librarians are and what a modern library is and can be, and your unique and personal relationship with it.”
Time Travel Johnson County's History
JoCoHistory expands the public's sense of community through an understanding of Johnson County's history and its place in American society.
The purpose of JoCoHistory is to collaboratively provide access to historical materials related to Johnson County, Kansas. It utilizes the strengths and expertise of each contributing organization to develop a broadly accessible web presence.
Specifically, the goals of JoCoHistory are to:
- Access local information through digitization of original and unique materials regarding the history and development of Johnson County
- Provide access to locally and remotely held information relevant to the history of Johnson County
- Provide curriculum tools that meet Kansas and national curriculum standards
- Promote an understanding of the importance of local history and regional development
The initial phase of the project began in Fall 2004 and was made possible by funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and from the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners through the Heritage Trust Fund (HTF). Initial contributors for JoCoHistory were the Johnson County Museum, Johnson County Library, Johnson County Archives and Olathe Public Library. Subsequent years have seen the involvement of Kansas School for the Deaf, Lenexa Historical Society, Olathe Historical Society, Overland Park Historical Society and Shawnee Mission School District.