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Be a Genealogy Genius!
Your genealogy general knowledge can benefit from two new event offerings:
One-on-One Genealogy Help
Basic Genealogy and DNA one-on-one help are now being held online via Zoom specific to your questions and research. Visit the Johnson County Genealogical Society to schedule an appointment. A volunteer will email a personal Zoom meeting link to you prior to the scheduled date.
Genealogy Special Interest Groups
Learn more about a specific topic or area of interest by joining one of these special interest groups. We meet regularly via Zoom. Free to the public.
• Genealogy Newbie Group
• Family Tree Maker Software
• Roots Magic Software
• Legacy Software
• FamilySearch.com
• Irish Special Interest Group
• DNA & Genetic Genealogy
• Writing Group
• Genealogy Scrapbooking
For questions or more information on the Johnson County Genealogical Society and items listed above, or to sign up for notifications, email info@jcgsks.org or visit the website.
Fall 2021 Guide
The Fall 2021 Guide is available in branches!
In addition to listing our online programs and events, the Fall 2021 Guide includes information on:
- Patrons Embrace Drive-Thru Service (page 2)
- Navigating a Return to In-Person Programming (page 4)
- The Central Building Upgrade (page 6)
- Volunteer Spotlights (page 27)
The Guide is produced each trimester and released in January, May and September. It features Library news, events and information.
Get yours today!
Discover Library OnDemand
We're pleased to introduce Library OnDemand -- your destination for Johnson County Library’s virtual events! Here you can browse and register for upcoming programs and events, as well as view past recordings in categories like Arts & Culture, Career & Personal Finance, Writers, Community Matters, and special content including the Antioch Library Replacement Project.
Arts & Culture
Designed to foster creatives and cultural workers of all types in our community, Arts & Culture features and celebrates local creativity and research in the Library's physical and digital spaces. It also promotes collaborations and partnerships between the Library and organizations that support the mission of the Library.
Career & Personal Finance
The Library is committed to continuing to support the career- and finance-related needs of our community members. Programs cover topics ranging from resumes and networking to budgeting and investing.
Writers
Featuring helpful programs and resources to support and celebrate local authors.
Community Matters
Providing resources and events for community problem-solving and local politics.
Library OnDemand makes it easy to discover, watch and engage in upcoming and past programs and events so you don’t miss a thing. Visit Library OnDemand and get started today.
Dive into the latest headlines at Johnson County Library
Journey past the headlines and delve into today’s trending news topics with NewsBank Hot Topics, available with your Johnson County Library card. You’ll find summaries of the month’s major world news topics, with a link to search a wide range of global news sources for articles, videos, blogs and more. Explore topics across a range of categories, including:
- Current Events
- Business & Economics
- Civics, Government, & Politics
- Social Issues
- Science, Technology & Health
- Sports
- Arts & Literature
- People in the News
For each search, you can narrow your results by year, type of media, publication location, and more. Improve article accessibility and ease of reading with options including font size and color adjustments, text-to-speech, and page masking to help you keep your place in the text.
Still hungry for news? You can catch up with current and past stories from newspapers like the Shawnee Mission Post, Kansas City Star, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and more with access provided by the Johnson County Library. All you need is your Library card. Visit the eNewspapers page on jocolibrary.org to start reading.
Johnson County Library also offers a comprehensive collection of archived articles from newspapers, magazines and journals. Read about past events as they happened in the Associated Press Collections Online. Or travel the world in a time machine with the expansive National Geographic Virtual Library.
From keeping up with today’s headlines to exploring yesterday’s reporting on world events, Johnson County Library has the news resources you need to stay informed and learn more about our world.
This Week at the Library
This week at the Library, you can join us for:
Walk and Read – Daily, All Week
“Take a walk and read a book.” Not normally sound advice, but that is exactly what Johnson County Library is suggesting families do this week at Wilder Bluff Park, (W 54th St., Shawnee, KS) and at various locations throughout Johnson County. Walk and Read creates a family reading experience in the great outdoors! Families who participate will read two stories posted around the path, one going each direction. When you finish one story, you can flip around to the other side of the sign and begin the next story, which will lead you back around the path.
One–on–One Genealogy Help – Tuesday, Aug 10, 9 am – 1 pm
Basic Genealogy and DNA one-on-one help are now being held online via Zoom specific to your questions and research. Visit Johnson County Genealogical Society to schedule an appointment. A volunteer will email a personal Zoom meeting link to you prior to the scheduled date.
Online Storytime – Thursday, Aug 12, 10 – 10:30 am
Your whole family will enjoy this flexible Storytime. 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.
Young Adult Literary Council – Sunday, Aug 15, 2 – 3 pm
Teens, you're invited to join the YA Literary Council to share favorite books, review titles for the Library website and participate in fun activities. You can meet new people and receive volunteer credit hours for your time with us.
The Gift of Exceptional Service
The gift of exceptional service
Volunteers have played an important role providing Johnson County Library services for seven decades. In the early 1950s, the Prairie School PTA Library Committee determined the need for a county-wide library system. Those volunteers created libraries in business storefronts with donated books and worked to secure public funding. Volunteerism is still key to the Library’s success. Today’s volunteers help in dozens of ways: they shelve holds, assist genealogy patrons in research, sell used books and serve leadership roles on the Boards of Directors. The global pandemic tried but couldn’t stop the dedicated volunteers. In 2020 551 volunteers contributed 21,683 hours of service valued at $590,000, according to independentsector.org. That’s 10 full-time employees’ worth of time!
The strengths of Johnson County Library’s volunteer program are the people who serve, especially the many longtime, dedicated volunteers. In April 2020 the Library honored five outstanding community members for their lifetime volunteer achievement. Together, these volunteers have contributed more than 31,155 hours of service – and counting. Let’s meet some of them.
LOUISE WELLER | 7,698 hours
Louise has been cashiering at Antioch Bookstore and sorting donations for more than 13 years. “Louise was invaluable to me when I started as manager, because she has so much experience,” says Becky Epperson, Bookstore Manager. Louise has developed relationships with customers, suggested books for them and always has time for a chat. As primary sorter at the donation facility, she is always on the lookout for items for the Johnson County Genealogy Society local history collection. Louise is a recipient of the Friends’ Shankel Award for Outstanding Service.
ALICE EDWARDS | 6,230 hours
Alice is a wealth of historical knowledge about the Friends. Looking for a way to exercise, she responded to a volunteer ad posted in a Library window – 21 years ago! Alice has staffed Friends book sales, the sorting center and the sales planning committee. She is a strong advocate for the Library and served three terms as a Friends board member, one as board President. “I have loved volunteering and sorting books and have always felt that helping the Library helps the whole county and everyone in it.”
LARRY LEIGHTON | 6,045 hours
Larry has been volunteering for over eight years in the online sales division. He lists, ships and manages inventories. Before COVID-19, Larry was a daily presence, then started to monitor orders from home. Last year, the Friends switched to a new software for processing online orders. Larry quickly picked up on the process and even developed a plan to remove old material from warehouse shelves. According to Friends Business and Online Sales Manager Matt Delaney, “My job would be much tougher without him.”
TEDY BELLOS | 5,623 hours
Tedy turned her passions for books and cats into volunteer service. She started when the Friends’ operations were at the Antioch branch. Tedy is the master researcher of vintage books for the online sales division, and helps generate excellent sales. Figuring out the true value of an autographed book and the best sales venue are Tedy’s gifts. Tedy is known by all the volunteers who affectionately refer to her workstation as “Tedy’s computer” – identifiable by the many festooned cat illustrations!
RUTH NOWACK | 5,560 hours
There are no volunteers, and few librarians, who know as much about children’s literature as does Ruth. She knows which are popular and what to hold on to for making more valuable sets, such as the Harry Potter series. She has volunteered for Libraries all over the county since 2003, and recruited her husband to volunteer, too! Ruth is a recipient of the Friends’ Shankel Award for Outstanding Service. “Working in the children’s area of our book sales, you get great smiles and hugs from kids who find the book they have been looking for.”
Learn more about becoming a Johnson County Library Volunteer and to see all of the available opportunities »
K-12 Interactive Books
Bring learning to life with hundreds of interactive books online for grades K-12. Topics cover science, social studies, language arts and more. Each title has a suggested reading level (K-10) and interest level (K-12), and some titles also are provided in Spanish.
Every page offers a mix of content for the topic:
- audio narration
- videos
- slideshows
- quizzes
- key words
- interactive maps
- printable activities
- supplemental streaming media
- weblinks to additional information
Titles for grades 9-12 also incorporate primary sources and historical documents such as letters, diaries, speeches and newspaper articles. All Lightbox content is based on national curriculum standards.
Access online with a computer or mobile device, no downloads required.
TBT: Kansas City History
The Past is Prologue: "Sumner High School: The Best Kept Secret" A Documentary Film
Thursday, August 5, 2021
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Online event
Register for this program online or call 913.826.4600.
The Past is Prologue is a bimonthly program that highlights topics often left out, glossed over, or misrepresented in our history books. In August, we will host a Q&A with filmmaker Kamiasha Moses-Tyner about her documentary film "Sumner High School: The Best Kept Secret." The documentary film focuses on a crime in 1904 that instantly created a racial barrier in the Kansas City, Kansas High Schools. Forced to study in a different facility as the whites, the African Americans created a “league of their own”. These compelling recollections of True Stories and events, demonstrates the power of how a single act of negligence can have over a community and a State.
Join us for a screening of this documentary film shortly before the program on Thursday, August 5 at 4:00 pm on Zoom. Or, watch it on your own time using Amazon Prime Video.
This program will be hosted in Library OnDemand. Upon registering, you will receive an automatic message with instructions on how to access the program. You do not need to download any software or create an account.
Dividing Lines: A History of Segregation in Kansas City
Journey through the history of segregation in the Kansas City metro, primarily through its real estate. Dividing Lines is a tour of the history of residential segregation and its far-reaching impacts.
Dividing Lines Driving Audio Tour
This Dividing Lines tour is designed so that you can safely drive through the city at your own pace while hearing stories about each area you travel through. Download the Voice Map app on Android or iOS.
Nathaniel Bozarth, ethnographer and host of the “Wide Ruled” podcast, narrates this 90-minute drive, bringing in interviews from several area students and notable city figures Sid Willens, Bill Tammeus, Mamie Hughes, and Margaret May.
“Dividing Lines” was created as a part of the Johnson County Library’s “Race Project KC.” The Library’s Civic Engagement Committee, Local History Committee, and Tanner Colby’s book “Some of My Best Friends are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America” inspired much of the ongoing work of Race Project KC. This tour was made possible by support from Johnson County Library and the Kansas Humanities Council. It was produced by Brainroot Light & Sound. Written by Nathaniel Bozarth and Christopher Cook. The tour features music from Hermon Mehari and KC Jazz LP.
The content of this tour may contain controversial material; such statements are not an expression of library policy.
Get more information and download the app now.
What's your Librarian journey?
We wanted to hear our Librarians' journeys.
We were especially interested in stories from Librarians who’ve:
- had multiple positions at Johnson County Library
- held the same position for many years
- had interesting career paths leading them to us
Now, we used the label "Librarian" loosely. We wanted to include the stories of public-facing staff as well.
This is the third episode in our Discover Your Library series of the Did you hear? podcast.
Join us for these often funny, sometimes touching and always compelling stories!