Search Stories

Kelly Farrar is a Community Support Specialist at Swope Health in Kansas City, serving as a caseworker for clients dealing with persistent mental health challenges. She assists adults in locating affordable housing, supports them during doctors’ appointments and provides other essential social service help.

But when she leaves the office to go pick up her 9-year-old daughter Clare from elementary school in De Soto, she finds the nearby Monticello branch of Johnson County Library to be a great space to relax, recharge and continue working in a beautiful setting.

“I’m in the Monticello branch once or twice a week,” she said. “I posted on Facebook, thanking them for the space. It’s very friendly. I wanted Library staff to know how much I appreciated it.”

The Monticello branch, located at 22435 W. 66th St. in Shawnee, opened in August 2018. It was the first new Johnson County Library branch built since 1994, to serve the county’s fast-growing western sector. The two-story, 30,500-square-foot building features floor-to-ceiling glass along three sides, filling the building with natural light. It was designed to be a 21st century Library, with vibrant color throughout and a diverse choice of cozy and cheerful seating areas.

Johnson County Library aims to provide attractive community spaces, and most branches have been updated in recent years with new seating and modern ergonomic furniture designed for comfort and tranquility.

That’s what’s been so appealing to Farrar. She had seen the Monticello branch from Shawnee Mission Parkway. She finally decided to stop in for a visit on the way to picking up her daughter earlier this school year.

Farrar has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). So when she entered the Library, she immediately found the décor and layout to be appealing.

“The fact that there’s multiple different seating arrangements,” she observed. “Not just the standard table and four chairs. When I walked in there and saw all these ADHD chairs I was so excited. I focus really well there too.”

Now, after she finishes with clients at her office and heads to De Soto, she frequently takes a break at Monticello. “I change where I sit every week,” she said. “I bring my work and I work on my clinical notes.”

Farrar has also started bringing Clare to Monticello after school, on their way home. “When my daughter is there with me at the Library I know she is safe and she will be occupied,” Farrar said.

Clare does her homework but also likes playing Roblox on the Library computers or just reading a book. She enjoys the “Captain Underpants” graphic novel series and is starting to read books featuring Percy Jackson.

One day after Clare’s school Halloween party, they stopped by the Library. Clare was still dressed as Link from the Legend of Zelda, and was delighted to find a Monticello staff member also dressed as Link that day. It was a happy coincidence and Clare and the staff member bonded over their costumes.

“She never says, ‘Can we go now?’” Farrar said, noting that her daughter enjoys hanging out at the branch as long as possible. “The staff have all been very friendly.”

Farrar enjoys her work and her Swope Health clients and feels gratified to provide vital services to people needing mental health support. During her commute, she has discovered that Johnson County Library’s relaxing Monticello branch is a haven to strengthen her own mental health, making her and Clare feel welcomed.

“It’s just a fun, safe place, where Clare and I can hang out,” Farrar said, “and be productive at the same time.”

Johnson County Library achieved another milestone in its seven-decade history with the March 20 opening of its newest branch, Merriam Plaza Library. This beautiful facility is co-located on a campus with the Merriam Community Center in the 6000 block of Slater Street.

The 15,000-square-foot branch replaced the much-loved but outdated Antioch Library, which had served Johnson County since the 1950s at the corner of Antioch Road and Shawnee Mission Parkway.

The new building is just a few blocks from the Antioch location and has Antioch’s same staff and collection. In fact, nearly 450 people, including Library-loving patrons and employees past and present, lined up shoulder-to-shoulder over about 1/3 mile on March 2 for a marvelous Slater Street Storybook Relay. They passed 58 items from Antioch to Merriam Plaza, the last of the Library collection to make the journey.

The Library and community center entrances face each other across a courtyard. The two facilities share a parking structure and a welcoming outdoor gathering space. Merriam leaders pitched the many benefits of a shared campus to Library officials in 2017, beginning a partnership to create this distinctive jewel and destination in the heart of the community.

At the March 20 grand opening, Merriam Mayor Bob Pape said patrons can nourish their minds at the Library and then work on their physical fitness at the community center right next door.

“It’s kind of a one-stop-shop for a total body makeover,” Pape said.

The energy-efficient building was designed by Dake Wells Architects, with many patron suggestions in mind, and constructed by Titan Built. Modern amenities include a convenient drive-thru; a cozy and colorful children’s reading area; vibrant public art; a large meeting room with updated technology to host Storytime and other events; two well-equipped study rooms; spacious windows allowing in lots of natural light; and an attractive green roof that preserves the roof’s lifespan while nurturing pollinators and native vegetation.

The Library also commemorates an important but little-known chapter in American racial justice history with the Webb Family Meeting Room. Long-time Merriam residents Alfonso and Mary Webb’s successful 1949 lawsuit to desegregate Merriam schools laid the legal foundation for the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education case five years later.

The Webbs had 10 children (five sons and five daughters) and lived in the community known as South Park, now part of the city of Merriam. Six of the children are still living. The Webb family’s courage and commitment to educational access resonated with Library officials, who wanted to pay homage to the family and share the story with future generations, through the room’s name and a gorgeous four-wall mural by local artist Emily Alvarez. Johnson County Library extends sincere gratitude to the Webb siblings for giving their time and energy to this project.

Victor Webb, son of Mary and Alfonso, addressed a large crowd at the March 20 grand-opening, while holding his 1-year-old grandson Jeffrey.

Webb recalled how the school district had built the new South Park Elementary School, open only to whites, while Black students had to attend the old and inferior Walker School. His parents helped rally the community to fight this injustice.

“It’s about what my mom and my dad did so many years ago,” Webb said. “They believed everybody had a right to a good education.”

Webb thanked the Library, the county and city for honoring his parents’ legacy with the beautiful meeting space. Gesturing to his grandson he said, “When I’m gone, he can walk in this room and he will know what we stood for and what we fought for.”

The Library project was completed on time and on budget. It cost about $13.7 million, funded through the Comprehensive Library Master Plan. Merriam residents did not see a city tax increase to pay for the project. The Library Board of Directors intends to sell the Antioch land and building, with proceeds from the sale funding future Library capital projects.

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 Archives

About this collection: Largely images from annual reports produced by Johnson County staff over the first half of the twentieth century, most notably the County Agricultural Agent and the Home Demonstration Agent. Numerous activities of those two offices are depicted, including programs with area farmers, homemakers and 4-H clubs.

Hello and welcome to No Wait Wednesday, where we take a peek at a great book on the New Release shelves at one of our local Library branches that's hot, fresh, and eagerly waiting for someone to take a chance on it. Normally in this space we tend to look at newer authors who are lurking just under the surface - their books might be well-reviewed, but at the same time aren't household names or endorsed by certain book group-loving celebrities and thus aren't a part of a massively long hold list. Today, however, we take a look at an author who's not only acclaimed as one of the greatest names in his particular genre, but his work has has sold millions of books around the globe and it's honestly a bit surprising that his newest stuff is not already buried under a mountain of holds: Brandon Sanderson.

Since his debut novel Elantris hit the shelves in 2005, Sanderson has electrified an entire generation of fantasy readers. Writing for both adults and teens and with the occasional journeys into science fiction, Sanderson's brand of relatable, intricately-built, and fast-paced novels are ideal entryways into the genre. His work is loosely connected together in an immense shared universe called the "Cosmere," where characters, elements, and concepts might reappear and reinforce themselves from book to book. (New readers shouldn't worry much about reading his work in sequence, however, as these repeating elements are very much in the background - similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe where Doctor Strange or Nick Fury might appear in a movie and you don't need to know their entire history to know what's going on.)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sanderson took the opportunity to work on what he referred to as a series of "Secret Projects" - works that would bypass the traditional publishing path and would offer to fans directly through Kickstarter. After becoming the most successful Kickstarter project of all time, these are now available to the public in print, which (finally!) brings us to today's No Wait Wednesday book, one of those "Secret Projects," entitled Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. Not exactly the straight-ahead epic fantasy that is Sanderson's hallmark, this work involves a more dreamlike fairy-tale fantasy mixed with character-driven romance, which is more in line with the current Romantasy trend of authors like Sarah Maas or Jennifer Armentrout than traditional old-schoolers like Patrick Rothfuss or Robert Jordan that have usually been Sanderson's readalikes.

"Yumi and the Nightmare Painter" introduces us to two characters in vastly different worlds: Yumi is a lonely young woman who lives a quiet, solitary, and thankless life where she channels divine spirits to help her community. Nikaro lives a world surrounded by dark, misty entities that he can trap by painting them into art and thereby protecting his city, however he has lost his creative spark and is just going through the motions. These two characters find themselves connected by a strange bond where, nightly, each can live in the others' body. As they get to know each other and learn how to navigate their new worlds and new abilities, they discover that they are the only ones who can truly understand each other, and they must find a way to both save their worlds and be together. Dreamlike, ethereal, and drenched in richly detailed atmosphere, this fantasy novel wrapped up in a love story was inspired in part by a Japanese manga series, "Hikaru no Go," and the video game "Final Fantasy X," among other Asian influences, and the pages are illustrated in a manga-like style by Aliya Chen that adds greatly to the striking visuals of the story.

Whether you're a fan of epic fantasy, romantasy, Japanese manga, Korean manhwha, or just looking for a well-told stand-alone story that satisfies, give this one a shot and put it on your holds list. Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next week!