Parsons Public Library

Today Is Wear Red Day !! Come by the library to sign up for the gift basket we are giving away on February 12 after the program “Preventive Health for Women” presented by Shellie Collins. This program is for American Heart Month. 

Parsons Public Library is helping raise awareness about heart disease during the month of February, which has been designated American Heart Month by the American Heart Association.

Friday, February 6 is National Wear Red Day, part of the Go Red for Women movement launched a decade ago by the American Heart Association to bring attention to the fact that heart disease is not just a man’s disease.  On that day, everyone is encouraged to wear red and to commit to making lifestyle changes to live longer, healthier lives.  Patrons who come to the library on that day and who are wearing red will be given a red “reward”, a token to remind them to put health first.  Those wearing red will also be eligible to enter a drawing for a basket of heart-healthy food items.  The library will have free educational materials that patrons can pick up on such topics as heart-healthy eating and reducing risk factors.  The “rewards” will be given out as long as supplies last on that day only.
A community Tribute Tree will be on display in the library during the month.  The tree is to honor all those who have succumbed to heart disease and all survivors of heart disease.  Anyone who has been affected by a heart-related condition is invited to stop by the library and sign their names and/or their loved one’s names on name tags which will be hung on the tree.

The display cases in the library will be used to display cardiac pillows that hospitals have given to patients after open-heart surgery to help them recover.  Anyone who has had bypass, valve, or other heart surgery, and who still owns a recovery pillow, is invited to loan the pillow to the library for display during the month.

According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States.  Every year, one in four deaths is caused by heart disease.  The good news is that 80% of cardiac events can be prevented with education and lifestyle changes.  

For more information, contact the library (620-421-5920) or email staff@parsonslibrary.org.

February 2-7, 2015

Monday, February 2, 2015 at 6:30 pm. Black History Month.  Parsons Public Library will host Angela O. Bates who will lead discussion titled “The Nicodemus Connection to a Vice President.”

Monday, February 2, 2015 at 6:30pm. Story Hour.  Join Miss Willie as she reads Grumpy Groundhog  by Maureen Wright.  Children ages 0-6 are welcome.

Tuesday, February 3,  2015 at 10 am. Story Hour.  Join Miss Willie as she reads Grumpy Groundhog  by Maureen Wright.  Children ages 0-6 are welcome.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015 at 10 am. Story Hour. Join Miss Willie as she reads Grumpy Groundhog  by Maureen Wright.  Children ages 0-6 are welcome.

– Parsons Public Library announces a four-part book discussion series scheduled for February through May on the theme “The 1930s.”

The first discussion, scheduled for Monday, February 23, at 6:30 pm, is on All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren.  Warren was a novelist, but he thought of his work as a sort of history as well.  “And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.”  The devil in question here is Huey Long, the notorious Louisiana governor who provided Warren a model for Willie Stark, the main character in this novel.   The discussion leader will be Linda Lewis, Professor of Humanities at Bethany College, Lindsborg.

Copies of the book are available now for check-out.

The series continues with discussions on The Day of the Locust  by Nathanael West (March 23), Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston (April 20), and The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (May 11).  All book discussions will begin at 6:30 pm in the multipurpose room of the library.

For American history, the 1930s was a pivotal, critical era.  In the early years of the decade, a range of fundamental challenges confronted the nation – the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, Prohibition, Nazi Germany, and imperial Japan.  Yet the later years of the decade are equally remarkable for the ways America mapped a route out of the crisis.

The series is sponsored by the Kansas Humanities Council, a nonprofit cultural organization, as part of its Talk About Literature in Kansas (TALK) program.  The Council, supported by a gift from the Emporia State University Center for Great Plains Studies, is furnishing the books and discussion leaders for the Parsons TALK series.  For more information about KHC, visit www.kansashumanities.org.

Members of the community are invited to attend the free programs, which will take place at the library, 311 South 17^th St.  To check out books and for more information about the reading series, contact the library at 620-421-5920.

We have not yet received any forms yet, but we anticipate that Federal Forms 1040, 1040A, and 1040EZ will be shipped to libraries around the end of January.  However, the IRS has informed us that due to funding cuts this year, NO instruction booklets will be sent to us.

You have several options for filing taxes, and we have links on our website that may help you.  On our homepage (www.parsonslibrary.org), click on the link at the very top of the page called “Sites to Explore”.  On this page, look for the heading “Tax Forms”, which lists three links.

Our first link (“Federal”) takes you to the IRS page where you can file online for free, download and print copies of forms and instructions, or order forms over the Internet or by phone to be mailed to you.

Our second link (“File Kansas Forms Online”) takes you to the Kansas Department of Revenue page where you can file online, or download and print forms and instructions.

If you need to file taxes in another state, our third link (“Other States”) takes you to a page that contains links to other states’ tax pages.

In addition, we will have one copy each of some of the more popular forms and instruction booklets available at the library’s front desk.  Patrons may review these and make copies of the forms and instructions they need.  Patrons may also use one of the library computers to download and print copies, order forms, or file online.  (Copies, whether photocopied or printed off the Internet, are .25/page.)