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Bethany Griffith is in her eighth and final year on the Johnson County Library Board, with a term that ends May 1, 2024. And she’s going out on top, serving through next April in the important post as Library Board Chair. 

She’s experienced a critical time of growth and change. She looks forward to this next year, providing strong volunteer leadership for an organization whose public mission she cherishes and champions. 

“It has been a real joy to get to advocate strongly for the Library,” Griffith said in an interview, “for our budget, for our staff, for getting us back open during COVID and for whatever is facing our communities.”  

She is determined that the Library will continue to provide access to information and enrichment, to sustain an educated, thriving citizenry. 

“We’re not gatekeepers of ideas. We don’t pick and choose what it is people have access to,” she emphasized. “Hopefully in the Library you can find information, ideas, support, things that are beautiful and wonderful.”

Griffith majored in philosophy and politics at Hendrix College in Arkansas and met her future husband James during a junior year abroad at Oxford. The couple married and lived in the United Kingdom for seven years before they relocated in 2006 to Lenexa, where James is an information technology professional. They had a son and daughter, and Griffith developed a deep appreciation for the children’s section and Storytimes at the Lackman branch. 

She was appointed to the Library board in 2016 by then-County Commissioner John Toplikar, who knew her as a home-school mom who highly valued the Library’s educational resources. 

Initially, she thought the board was an advisory cheerleader for the system. But she quickly realized it had a much more significant policy governance function, for one of the county’s most vital services. She has always been fond of community engagement and embraced that responsibility. 

“Although it was a surprise,” she said, “it actually has been a really good fit.”

Her first vote was to fund the collection for the new Monticello branch. She was a key liaison overseeing the building of the beautiful Lenexa City Center branch that opened in 2019. She was a strong advocate for getting Library branches back open as soon as possible, safely, during COVID. And she pushed for years to eliminate fines for overdue materials, another strategy that enhances access. The fines-free policy was approved in April 2023.

Griffith says COVID revealed the need for administrative succession planning, which led to more cross-training and a leadership studies grant allowing staffers to continue to learn and advance in their fields. Johnson County Library now presents this organizational blueprint at professional conferences, and Griffith wants to see that staff support solidified in her final year. She also realizes she has considerable institutional knowledge to pass along to newer board members over the next year, “to facilitate leaving a board just as engaged, healthy, vibrant and committed as it was when I got here.”

As Libraries nationwide deal with book ban petitions and other challenges, Griffith wants the public to know that Johnson County Library has clearly-written thorough policies and procedures, grounded in legal precedent. “We’ve done the best that we can to make the system opinion neutral. You can access stuff and it’s up to you as a parent, you as an individual, to decide which things you engage with,” she said.

Heading into an election year, Griffith sees a crucial role for the Library to support democracy and civic engagement. Her vision is clear: “That the Library should be a safe place for every single citizen, for every taxpayer. The fact that it’s nonpartisan I think is incredibly important. There are books, stories here for every type of person. This Library is for every single citizen.”

It’s another grand Throwback Thursday where 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: Lenexa Historical Society

About this collection: This collection is comprised of over 3,500 images relating to the history, development and people of Lenexa, Kansas. Particular strengths include area construction projects, photos of the Legler Barn Museum, the Lenexa Centennial celebration of 1969 and early landowners. The photographs were collected and maintained by the Lenexa Historical Society, who are headquartered at the Legler Barn Museum in Sar Ko Par Park.

Oak Park Library, located at 9500 Bluejacket St. in Overland Park, has been a cherished neighborhood branch since 1970. It has a cheerful, family-friendly atmosphere that’s popular with patrons who walk or drive in from nearby residential areas. But the building needs updating, which is due to happen later this year.

Oak Park Library will be closed for renovations beginning Monday, Aug. 7 through mid-December. In addition to infrastructure upgrades to electrical and HVAC systems, a few of the changes you’ll notice include paving and entry enhancements and remodeled public restrooms. 

No services will be available at Oak Park during the closure period. Returns, holds pickup, public computers, printing and copying, meeting rooms and access to the collection are available at our other 13 locations across the county, including Central Resource Library (9875 W. 87th St., Overland Park). Central Resource is less than two miles from Oak Park and features a convenient drive-thru for holds pick-up and materials return. 

Here are a few important dates to keep in mind: 

• Friday, July 21 is the last day to request an item for holds or Interlibrary Loan pick up at Oak Park. After this date Oak Park will no longer show as an option for a holds pickup location.
   
• On Tuesday, Aug. 1, all not ready/pending holds with a requested pickup location of Oak Park will be reassigned for pickup inside Central Resource Library. You can also log into your Web Catalog account and change the pickup location, or suspend your hold until Oak Park reopens.
   
• Saturday, Aug. 5 is the last day of services at Oak Park. Available holds not picked up by close of business at 5 p.m. will expire.

​​​​Branch Manager Jared Harper said those renovations will help ensure a bright future for this wonderful branch. “What distinguishes Oak Park now is it is an older Library that has charm to it,” Harper said. “It is a branch that is really well loved in the community.”

Harper said many parents fondly recall visiting the branch as children and now enjoy bringing their own children there. One added amenity is its location adjacent to Overland Park community garden plots. Oak Park was built during a time of great population growth and new residential development in Johnson County. Voters approved a $1.5 million bond issue in 1967 to expand Antioch and Corinth and to build two new branches: Cedar Roe and Oak Park (originally called the Southwest Library and then renamed for the adjacent Oak Park neighborhood).

Oak Park opened Nov. 3, 1970 and held an open house dedication in February 1971. It expanded in 1982.

After Central Resource Library opened in the mid-1990s on 87th Street, just two miles north of Oak Park, Library leaders briefly considered closing the Oak Park branch in 1999. But countless patrons sent postcards, pleading to keep it open. They praised the convenient location, the collection, the friendly staff and the vibrant atmosphere. Oak Park stayed open.

“It’s such a fixture in the community,” Harper observed. 

Oak Park is in the middle of the pack as far as busyness, but it has the largest circulation of any Johnson County branch without an automated sorter. In 2018, it recorded more than 197,000 visits and circulated more than 291,000 materials.

In the early 2000s, Oak Park was known as the hub for Latino services, including English Language Learner classes and other programs. Then-branch manager Maggie Vallazza was passionate about reaching out to the Latino community, as were Spanish-speaking staffers Christine Peterson, German Perilla and others.

In 2015, Harper explains, Spanish services were expanded throughout the system. Vallazza has retired and Peterson is now based out of Central, concentrating on youth Latino services. But Perilla continues to serve Spanish speakers who visit the branch, which retains the largest Spanish-language collection in the Johnson County Library system.

Now, Oak Park is known for serving young families, with a large and diverse children’s collection, heavily-used computer stations and a popular Holds service. 

Last year, the branch shut down for about a week to remodel the circulation area for better work-flow and to update the staff break room. This year’s improvements will require a prolonged closure but are timed to come after the busy summer rush. Harper said patrons can visit Central Resource Library during that time. More changes are expected in 2024, when the branch is due to get new shelving and some new furniture.

“Getting new shelving next year would just really brighten up the space,” Harper said.

One-on-One Help: Basic Genealogy – Tuesday, July 18, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.

For one-on-one basic or DNA genealogy help visit the Johnson County Genealogical Society at www.jcgsks.org to schedule an appointment.

Healthy Living Classes – Tuesdays through Aug. 15, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.

Community health workers from the Johnson County Department of Health & Environment will be onsite in Conference Room 20 every Tuesday from 10:30-11:30 to provide information about healthy living. 

Panel Discussion: Bike Shop 101 – Tuesday, July 18, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Are you still riding the bike your parents bought you 20 years ago? Would [insert new gadget here] relieve the numbness in your [insert body part here]? Come listen to some bike shop experts as they explain the different styles of bikes, help identify necessary gear, and explain the benefits of a bike fit.

"Bike Shop 101" is part of the 2023 Women's Bike Summit Series. The Women's Bike Summit is a gender-inclusive venue for people of all ages and backgrounds to come together to celebrate bicycling, discuss issues that are relevant and important to people on bikes, and get practical biking experience.

Immediacy, Urgency or Tranquility: What Moves Us to Write with Dzvinia Orlowsky and Carolyne Wright – Wednesday, July 19, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Often you’ll read or hear poetry described as urgent when, in fact, the poem’s strength lies in its immediacy—the quality of unmediated awareness, of something happening right away, without that added sense of pressure. In this one-hour conversation between poets Dzvinia Orlowsky and Carolyne Wright, they’ll discuss the craft considerations that make one poem “immediate” and another “urgent.” This program will be hosted using the meeting software Zoom. A Johnson County Library staff member will contact registrants via the email you registered with to provide more information about the program and instructions on how to access the Zoom meetings. You do not need to download any software or create an account.

What Moves You to Write? A Generative Workshop – Saturday, July 22, 9 a.m. – 11 a.m.

In this two-hour generative workshop, poet and translator Dzvinia Orlowsky will review key points about considerations of genre and the nuances between immediacy, urgency, and tranquility, before providing prompts and holding space to write. There will be time to share work, discuss craft, and write even more. Have paper and pencil (or your keyboard) ready! This program will be hosted using the meeting software Zoom. A Johnson County Library staff member will contact registrants via email the day before the meeting with instructions on how to access the Zoom meeting. You do not need to download any software or create an account.

And much more happening this week …