Welcome back! The Main Library and the Fowler Branch are now open for browsing with modified hours and by advance registration.

[View More Details][Reserve a Library Visit] [View Library's Phase 3 Service Restoration Plan]​

Curbside pickup service continues at the Main Library. Both locations will be closed on Monday, October 12 for Columbus Day.

Concord Stories from Special Collections is a new virtual series that highlights the rich holdings of the Concord Free Public Library Corporation’s William Munroe Special Collections through stories about Concord’s people and places from a variety of guests, including Concord residents, scholars, researchers, and curators.

The featured guest for our first installment on Thursday, October 1 at 7:00 p.m. is Dr. Eleanor Harvey, the senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her current exhibition, Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture, considers how deeply entwined the naturalist’s ideas were with America’s emerging identity, grounded in an appreciation of the landscape. In her presentation, Eleanor will focus on the significance of including one of Concord Free Public Library’s paintings, The Philosophers Camp in the Adirondacks, by William James Stillman in her current exhibition, and the relationships between the Concord Transcendentalists and Humboldt.

Visit the Library's website this Thursday, October 1 at 7:00 p.m. to join us for the premiere of Concord Stories!

Are you interested in learning more about Humboldt and the exhibit? Please visit the SAAM.

Want to get an introduction to the Concord Free Public Library’s art collection? We invite you to visit our self-guided virtual tour of selected artwork from the Concord Free Public Library Corporation’s William Munroe Special Collections

Join us online for the next installment of Concord Stories​ on October 15 at 7 p.m. ​Featured Guest: Deborah Noyes, author of A Hopeful Heart: Louisa May Alcott Before Little Women, published just this month! She will discuss her new book and read some of her favorite passages.

Sunday, October 4, 3:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Poets Tommye Blount and Nathan McClain launch our virtual series with readings from their powerful, long anticipated debut collections. During the Q and A they will talk about their practice and the influences on their writing lives.

Blount, author of Fantasia for a Man in Blue, is a Cave Canem alumnus, a recipient of a fellowship from Kresge Arts in Detroit and the John Atherton scholarship from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and a graduate from Warren Wilson College. He has been featured in Magma, New England Review, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Ecotone, Ninth Letter, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Born and raised in Detroit, he now lives in Novi, Michigan.

McClain, author of Scale, is a recipient of fellowships from Sewanee Writers' Conference, The Frost Place, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson. His poems and prose have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Green Mountains Review, The Common, The Critical Flame, Poem-a-Day, and Zocalo Public Square. He teaches at Hampshire College.

This virtual webinar series is sponsored by the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library. Register here for the Zoom link.

The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library will present the 2020 Ruth Ratner Miller Award to recipient Jill Lepore online. The event will kick off the 2020 Concord Festival of Authors. Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and is also a staff writer at The New Yorker. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, her many books include the international bestseller These Truths: a History of the United States, This America: The Case for the Nation, and If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future. Click here to read more and register for the event.

This year's Concord Festival of Authors will take place online from October 16 - 31. For a complete listing of the Festival events, please visit www.concordfestivalofauthors.org.

Thursday Morning Meditation Series on Zoom

Join Be Well Be Here for a 30-minute morning meditation practice with the Concord Free Public Library, and start your day with a moment of ease. Discover mindful tools that center the body, settle the mind, and open the door to well-being. [Register for October 1] 

In October, the book discussion group will discuss Up From Slavery, by Booker T. Washington. All are welcome. Copies of the eBook

are available through Hoopla. Please email bgugluizza@minlib.net for the Zoom link.

In October the Mystery book group will meet and discuss The Muralist by B A Shapiro. The ebook of the title is available to download on Libby. We also have some print copies available for pickup at the Fowler. [Register for Zoom Link]

September 30, 4:00-5:00 p.m

Ages 11 & up [Register]

Join The Nature Connection through Zoom as we explore plants and animals, geek out over nature, and connect with ourselves and those around us in new ways – all through nature-based stories and poems. This event is a part of the Climate Preparedness Week.

Rockabye Beats is a fun family group whose music is reminiscent of founder’s Marcos Valles’s Puerto Rico. Join us on Zoom for an interactive 30-minute concert that includes movement, dancing, counting, singing, a little bit of Spanish vocabulary, and an instrument show and tell (drum, guitar, rhythm instruments, xylophone, and so forth). Sponsored by The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library. [Register for Zoom Link]

Did you know that reading to dogs boosts reading, emotional and social skills for children? Join us for a "Read around the Zoom" group reading experience. Using Zoom meeting platform, we will all take turns reading aloud to Luna and to each other. [Sign Up]

Join Karen Ahearn for a fun Zoom storytime highlighting old and new favorite stories and songs! This program is geared toward children ages 4 years and up, but anyone who enjoys listening to stories is invited. Register to receive the Zoom link.[Oct 2] [Oct 9] [Oct 16] [Oct 23] [Oct 30]

Virtual Writing Studio 

The Virtual Writing Studio is back! And this time, we are open to individuals grades 3 - 8 for brain-storming, story-telling, genre-busting, and totally kid-oriented writing. Join resident poet and our Children's Department Assistant Cary Stough for a writing-themed mid-day break with collaborative poems, hilarious and engaging PowerPoint presentations. No writing experience required. [Register for Zoom Link]

Missing storytime at the Library? Join us on Zoom for some short stories, songs, and rhymes. This is a great way to build early literacy skills. Children of all ages are welcome. [Sign up for October 7]

[Oct 7 - Cheese Biscuits in a Mug][Oct 14 - Broccoli & Cheese Rice Bowl][Oct 21 - S'mores in a Mug] [Oct 28 - Banana Bread]

Join Branch Librarian Dorrie Karlin for stories, songs, and rhymes. [Sign up for October 1] [October 8]

Fridays @ 10:00 a.m. on Library's Facebook Premiere

and 2:00 p.m. on Instagram

Every Friday, thirteen year-old Jacob Edelman reads a special story from our staff curated list of 101 Picture Books Concord Free Public Library Loves!

Family life has a milieu of details to balance each day. Practicing yoga together can offer some insight into another way to meet the day to day happenings between parents, caregivers and children. Parents, caregivers and children are invited to play yoga and cultivate a life-long practice together! Classes are designed to meet and share experiential what the developmental needs of the children are and be a place where families have fun and grow collectively. Register to receive the Zoom link: [Oct 5] [Oct 12] [Oct 19] [Oct 26]

Sponsored by The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library.

Tuesday, October 6, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. 

Wee the People, a Boston-based social justice project will host a workshop designed for 2nd - 5th graders about racism. Kids notice a lot -- including skin color. They sense that it matters, and they have questions about how and why. Together we will explore how racism isn’t just one thing, but a system with many parts working together. Through activities, kids will learn how they can help disrupt and topple these systems. Wee The People (WTP) is a Boston-based social justice project launched in 2015 by two Black mothers. WTP organizes free, interactive workshops and events that explore activism, resistance, and social action through the visual and performing arts: music, dance/movement, theater, graphic arts, spoken word, and storytelling. Sponsored by The Concord Free Library Corporation & The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library [Register]

This orientation will help girls decide whether they want to participate in the program. Girls Who Code Club is a two-hour weekly commitment from October through May. Please register to receive the Zoom link.

with your family through music. This family-friendly performance will have everyone up and moving, dancing and singing. Generously sponsored by the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library. [Register]