Connect With Your Library

National Library Week is April 3 through 9. The theme this year is Connect With Your Library. Our Russell County Public Library calendar is full of events for April. We have given you a reason to connect (or re-connect) with your library almost every day!

We are very excited about the talk The Face of America: One Woman’s (and Her Family’s) Adventures as an American Diplomat. On April 14, Rose Likins, a retired U.S. State Department diplomat, will share stories from her years stationed in Latin America and her experience raising kids abroad. Ms. Likins is presently Library Director at Smyth County Public Library. Please join us for this talk at 6:30 pm at the Lebanon Library.

A Cup and A Conversation is a new weekly adult program. Each Thursday at Lebanon from 10 am to noon we welcome adults to drop by and have a cup of coffee. You can work on a puzzle, play cards or just chat. Action Tables are another opportunity to talk about how to put your values into action; this program expands on the Values Tables from earlier this year. Action Tables meet at 1 pm on Mondays at Honaker and Fridays at Lebanon. 

Paracord, book art, collage, and crochet are some of the crafts we feature at our libraries this month. You can drop in and learn or grab a bag of supplies and take it home. Connect with Crafts is at 4 pm on Mondays at Honaker and Tuesdays at Lebanon. 

We Demand: Women's Suffrage in Virginia is a free exhibition at Lebanon Library from March 29 through May 3. This traveling exhibition comes to us from the Library of Virginia and is an excellent opportunity to learn more about Virginia history. On April 20 at 7 pm, Brent Tarter, Barbara Babson, and Mari Julienne will discuss their book The Campaign for Woman Suffrage in Virginia via Zoom. We can send you a link to the Zoom meeting, or you can watch it in the Lebanon Library. 

Spring is here, and Covid is fading (mostly), so come in and pick up a book or a magazine, try a new craft, or listen to a talk, but most importantly, connect.

Posted by Kelly McBride Delph

The Invisible Half of the County

Russell County Public Library founded 1959

For thousands of years, women were the invisible half of the population. History records the men who led or excelled. Yet, when women were not elected to offices or appointed to boards, they still served. Women led. Look at this picture. The Women's Club was instrumental in the foundation of the public library in Russell County. And they did it in hose, heels, and hats. (And they had to iron much of what they wore...when was the last time you used an iron?!)

Women are more than half the population, yet we are still not represented fully in our communities' jobs and roles. We need to step up to the plate and serve--apply for the job, run for the office, coach the team.

As we take our full and rightful roles in society, we need to remember the women in the past and the present who have filled important roles, large and small. The Women's History Essay Contest is your opportunity to honor a women who is native to or lived in Russell County. Russell County Public Library holds the Women's History Essay Contest every other year and the judges use the essays to recommend women for the Russell County Women's Hall of Fame. 

Write the women of Russell County into history with your essay.

Posted by Kelly McBride Delph