Search Stories

Did you know you can join one of our librarians for a storytime whenever you want? With a variety of our favorite songs, rhymes, finger plays, and flannel board stories, this is a great way to spend time with your kids and help them foster a love of reading. See our Storytimes On Demand »

On Artists in Sight, we interview some of the Kansas City area's best local visual artists for insights about their work, creative process and the things that inspire them.

March 23: Sol Anzorena
Sol Anzorena was born in Argentina but grew up in southern Spain. She has been making art since she was very young and has been traveling and studying art at different universities in Poland and Brazil. She recently returned from a trip to Asia, where she spent considerable time painting various murals and learning about the traditional art of India. Anzorena’s love of nature inspires her to create “organic and loose” works. Currently living in Kansas City, Sol Anzorena splits her time working on new paintings and composing music with her partner in their band Roadkill Rising.

This program will be hosted using the On24 meeting software, and you can register for this program directly with On24.

April 27: Lindsey Yankey
Lindsey Yankey grew up in rural Kansas playing outside, painting, drawing, and playing sports. She studied Illustration at the University of Kansas and is currently living in Lawrence, KS, with her family and their jungle of house plants. She finds inspiration in nature, animals, books, people, and traveling. Her illustrations are made with a variety of materials. She loves the mouthwatering juiciness of oil paint, the independence watercolor, the history of found paper, the simplicity of pencil and pen, and all the rabbit holes that are revealed by carving linoleum block to create pattern and repetition. Making children's books is her way of combining all her loves. She is the author and illustrator of the books Bluebird, Sun and Moon, and the illustrator of My Grandma and Me. 

This program will be hosted using the On24 meeting software, and you can register for this program directly with On24.

Past sessions available on demand:

PAST: January 26: Chico Sierra
Chico Sierra is a Mexican-American visual artist, poet, musician and muralist, among many other things. Chico learned that borders can be fixed and severe, but also blurry or even non-existent. His cultural hybridity has played out throughout his life as he has spent time living with people of different classes and cultures in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Germany and the Philippines. The cultures that Chico experienced in these countries, as well as the theme of blurring borders can be found in Chico’s art, poetry and music which is heavily influenced by graffiti, pop art, Mexican folk art and political comics.

PAST: February 23: Fally Afani
Fally Afani’s photography captures the electric energy and urgency of the Kansas City and Lawrence music scenes. Her love of live music prompted her to focus her energy on working with local musicians and connecting them with the community. In normal times you can find her covering concerts in Lawrence, Kansas City, or music festivals across the nation. Her award-winning journalism, which now spans 15 years, has been featured in magazines, newspapers, and television stations across Kansas. She has received several Kansas Association of Broadcasters awards as well as an Edward R. Murrow award for her online work in journalism. She is the editor and founder of the music journalism project I Heart Local Music
 

This week at the Library, you can join us for:

Online Storytime – Monday, March 22, 10 – 10:30 AM
Hearing stories is a great way to spend time with your kids and help them foster a love of reading. Stories, songs, fingerplays and movement activities foster pre-reading skills. Fun for the whole family.

Artists In Sight – Tuesday, March 23, 6:30  – 7:00 PM
An interview with Sol Anzorena. She recently returned from a trip to Asia, where she spent considerable time painting various murals and learning about the traditional art of India. Anzorena’s love of nature inspires her to create “organic and loose” works.

Español a la carta – Thursday, March 25 , 4:00  – 5:30 PM
For Spanish-language learners: This is an online class for intermediate and advanced students of this beautiful language. In this class, we will talk about Latin American countries, culture, history, literature and more.

Legislative Coffee – Saturday, March 27, 9:30 – 10:30 AM
Discover what's percolating in the Kansas Legislature. Senator Dinah Sykes, District 21, Representative Mari-Lynn Poskin, District 20, and Representative Rui Xu, District 25  will discuss the new legislative session, followed by Q and A. You bring the questions! This series is presented in partnership with the League of Women Voters. 

And much more …

We are making areas of Central Resource Library even better in 2021! After clearing the Library of furniture and equipment on the staff side, "Little Central" was opened on February 15 to give patrons access to some resources and modified services during the building upgrade. Little Central includes services like materials return, holds pickup and self-checkout, access to nine public computers, restrooms, printing/copying/scanning, and community information. 

To create Little Central, the Library was closed for a week while temporary walls were installed to create a public barrier from the noise and construction work. In this first phase of the project, construction crew members installed plastic covering over all the book stacks and existing furniture before beginning demolition of the old staff space. Crew members moved the Kids area stacks and started carpet removal.

We know you probably have many questions about what to expect over the next year, so we’ve put together a Construction FAQ that addresses the status of popular services like the Black & Veatch MakerSpace and Genealogy resources, more details about Little Central, and where to find alternate services.

In addition to its public service staff, Central is home to many departments that support all 14 branches. Once the work at Central is complete, you will feel the positive impact across the Library system!

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. You bring the questions!

Submit your questions in advance »

Register for Legislative Coffee on March 20, 9:30 am. Our guests will be:

• Senator Pat Pettey, District 6
• Representative JoElla Hoye, District 17
• Representative Brett Parker, District 29
• Representative Brandon Woodard, District 30

Presented with the League of Women Voters.

Lucas Kirkendoll has been with Johnson County Library for a little over two years, during a profoundly challenging time for the entire Library system, especially since the Coronavirus pandemic struck. But he has adjusted to changing job roles and responsibilities and appreciates how his colleagues have also adapted and risen to the occasion.

Kirkendoll was hired in late 2018 as a learning and development clerk, providing support for the training specialists. He assisted two specialists with in-person presentations, preparing rooms, printing materials and running reports. And then the world changed.

“When the pandemic hit, initially it was really overwhelming,” Kirkendoll said. But the Library managed that change more smoothly than he had expected.

“I think part of it is just the nature of Library staff in general,” he observed. “How intuitive they are and hungry for learning opportunities. Initially we had to get a real grasp of what we could and couldn’t do and what was best for the organization.”

Some training responsibilities got put on hold, he says. But that generated opportunities to provide support in other ways such as running online meetings and taking notes to keep everyone on track.

He was part of a team working on the diversity and inclusion initiative. “We worked with an outside consultant to train all of our managers,” he said. Kirkendoll acted as a moderator or producer, the person behind the scenes running the online meetings.

Then in November 2020 the position got regraded as a training specialist, allowing him to facilitate and host meetings and to be a point of contact for new employee orientation.

Kirkendoll brings varied life experiences to this role. He grew up in Parkville, Mo., where he attended Park Hill South High School and initially was more pre-occupied with sports than academics. He played soccer at Maple Woods Community College but realized sports wasn’t going to be his career, so got a degree in psychology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

He later got a job as a Johnson County Mental Health case manager. He worked with adolescents dealing with substance abuse and then assisted adults coping with persistent mental illness. He personally witnessed how adolescents in residential treatment valued the Library’s incarcerated services program.

“Those kids would go through books like anyone’s business,” he recalled. He sometimes met adults in  Library meeting rooms, and realized how important Library branches were for community outreach.

Kirkendoll took seriously the advocacy he could provide for clients, to show them “their voice is important.”

While studying in college, one field he found interesting was industrial organizational psychology, focusing on ways to improve the work environment, including job performance, communication and professional satisfaction.

At Johnson County Mental Health, he transitioned from working with clients to working with staff on training and support, which was very rewarding. Then he saw the opening at the Library and applied.

Kirkendoll has enjoyed the Library work, and is also pursuing information technology studies at Johnson County Community College in his spare time.

“I could see that being beneficial for the organization, understanding the application of different software systems,” he said.