…with the Idaho Office for Refugees

The Refugee Speakers Bureau is bringing the flavors of our stories and our foods to the Wood River Valley for two special events! Click here to learn about Friday’s free program at The Community Library, and read on for information about Saturday’s cooking class. 

Join Chef Shadi Ismail on Saturday, April 30, for a taste of Syrian cooking! Shadi’s cooking demonstration will include instructions on making hummus, baba ganoush, and other favorites. The demo takes place from 10 a.m. to noon at the Sun Valley Culinary Institute, 211 N Main St, Ketchum. There is no fee to attend, and all donations will support the Idaho Office for Refugees.

Space is limited. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

Note: Attendees will be viewing the demonstration but not actively taking part in food preparation. 

The Refugee Speakers Bureau, a program of the Idaho Office for Refugees, was established in 2015 and connects participants with communities around Idaho to share their stories and foster public dialogue. The Idaho Office for Refugees is the state administrator of the refugee resettlement program. We connect new Americans and Idaho communities to enrich lives and create belonging.

Supported by The Community Library, The Advocates, and the Sun Valley Culinary Institute.

Join the Idaho State Historical Society (ISHS) and Idaho constitution expert and ISHS board of trustees member Ernie Hoidal, for the opening of Creating and Conserving the Constitution, an exhibit which explores the Idaho State Archives’ work in partnership with the Preservation Lab at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library.

Panelists will discuss the multi-year conservation effort and the history of Idaho’s Constitutional Convention during the summer of 1889. Learn about the delegates from Alturas County (which includes present day Blaine County) who contributed and debated ideas to be drafted into the constitution and discover how you can access this vital piece of Idaho history and many others in your own home. 

After the presentation, join us for a reception in the Library’s Foyer to enjoy some cookies around the exhibit, Creating and Conserving the Idaho Constitution, on display in the Library’s Foyer from April 28 to June 25, 2022.

Register here to save your seat for this program, or watch live or later on Vimeo. Click here to watch.

Shoshone-Bannock Fish & Wildlife Perspectives on Salmon Studies

In celebration of Earth Day, Kurt Tardy and Rob Trahant will join us to discuss their salmon recovery work with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. They’ll share the history of the Tribes’ fishing practices along Idaho’s rivers and current tribal resource management and inter-agency coordination, including specific projects at Pettit Lake and on the Middle Fork of the Salmon. They’ll also look ahead to the future of sockeye and chinook, rivers and dam management, and climate change before inviting your questions.

Kurt Tardy, Fisheries Manager, is an anadromous fish biologist who has worked with the Shoshone-Bannock tribes in central Idaho for nearly a decade. Kurt’s focus is on fish restoration, with the long-term goal of restoring salmon and steelhead populations to their historic abundance and the short-term goal of saving them from impending extinction. 

Rob Trahant (Shoshone-Bannock) is a fisheries technician for the Tribes and lead technician on the Pettit Lake Weir facility. He has worked since 1995 on sockeye recovery efforts in the Sawtooth Basin.

Space is limited, so advance registration is requested. This event will also be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing. Watch here on Vimeo.

Presented in partnership with the Idaho Conversation League and the Climate Action Coalition of the Wood River Valley.

The Community Library is thrilled to announce our 2022 Hemingway Distinguished Lecture with Roxane Gay.

Thursday, July 7, 2022

Roxane is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, and the New York Times bestselling memoir Hunger. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel and host of the podcast The Roxane Gay Agenda.

Register Here!

Paddling steadily towards our Summer Reading program, with the theme, “Oceans of Possibilities,” the Children’s Library recently launched a new exhibit. Come see the imaginative jellyfish and other underwater flora and fauna.

Arvin Ramgoolam is an emerging writer and owner of Townie Books and Rumors Coffee and Tea House in Crested Butte, Colorado (Ute Territory). Arvin is the 2020 One Story Adina Talve-Goodman Fellow and a 2022 MacDowell Fellow. While in residence, he will be at work on his novel in progress titled, A New West, an unsettling of the West and recentering it around indigenous, brown, black and queer bodies of difference.

When not writing, Arvin is an environmental steward with High Country Conservation Advocates and a facilitator for the Literary Arts program at the Crested Butte Center for the Arts. His narratives can be found in AAWW’s The Margins, The Normal School, and the Jellyfish Review.

Ramgoolam is the second annual Writing by Writers (WxW) resident in The Community Library’s Hemingway Writer-In-Residence program.

Space is limited, so register to save your seat. The program will also stream on the Library’s Vimeo and be available to watch live or later. Watch here on Vimeo.