Featured Events

Jan Mann Will Share Favorite CT Picnic Sites and Recipes

On Sunday, June 1st at 4:00pm, the Essex Library will host a presentation and book signing by Jan Mann, author of Cruising Connecticut with a Picnic Basket. With the price of gas expected to soar even higher this summer, many Connecticut residents will find this book the perfect companion to take on day trips in their own backyards. Mann gives a detailed description of forty-two diverse destinations with daytrip information suitable to a variety of ages and interests. Readers will be introduced to new places as well as get updates on well-known tourist spots. Those who attend will also enjoy tasting some of the favorite picnic basket recipes included in the book. 

Jan Mann is the founder of the Open Circle Writer’s Group and is a member of Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. She has long had a passion for day tripping and has enjoyed many years of designing special outings for friends and family before embarking on the adventure of writing this day tripping book.

Library Blogs

Win Award from

CT Library Association

The Connecticut Library Association has selected the Essex Library’s two blogs, The In-Site Bank and The Short List, for their 2008 Publicity Award.

 The Library will be presented with the award during the Connecticut Library Association’s Annual Conference scheduled for April 29, 2008 at the Mystic Marriott hotel in Groton. The winning blogs will be showcased at the conference during a presentation led by Essex Librarian and creative director of the blog spots, Ann Thompson.

 “Ann developed the concept for the blogs,” said Ms. Quinn-Carey, “she also designed, implemented and continues to update the spots on an almost daily basis. We are so proud of her creative work and for putting our Library on the cutting edge of interactive Web services.”

The blogs can be accessed from the Essex Library’s website, www.essexlib.org. The In-Site Bank is a blog dedicated to highlighting “...a wealth of interesting web sites…” and The Short-List promotes the “…millions of reasons to enjoy the Essex Library, one at a time.” 

The CLA Publicity Awards accepts nominations annually from member libraries for materials designed by their library to promote a library concept or event. A panel of two or more designers/artists and a representative from the library field selects the winning entries. Entries are judged for content, originality and design.

“There is one international body that is not as well known as it should be,” says Jerome Wilson, a member of the Southeast Connecticut Committee on Foreign Relations, “and that is the European Union.”  Wilson will introduce what he terms “this remarkable world body ” at a program on Sunday, May 18 at 4:00 p.m. 

Wilson will note the sheer immensity of the European Union, which is far larger in size and economic output than our own United States. The 27- member nation body extends from Ireland in the west to Romania in the east, from Finland in the north to Italy in the south. Members of the group include Europe’s major powers, Germany, France and Britain, and smaller countries, Malta and Slovenia.

The major accomplishment of the European Union, according to Wilson, is that for over half a century there has been peace among Europe’s major powers. “No more World Wars, which we were dragged into, no more saturation bombings of German and English cities, no more millions and millions killed, no more death camps, no more atrocities …”

In addition to being a peaceable union, the European Union has set up a single, free market for Europeans goods, services, capital and labor. Internal border controls and tariffs have been eliminated.

Then there’s the euro. In less than ten years the euro has become a major world currency. To make way for the euro the French franc, the Italian lira, the Spanish peseta, the Greek drahma and the German mark are no more, although Britain has stuck with the pound.

Wilson has written a number of oped pieces on the European Union and recently appeared on WNPR’s Faith Middleton Show on the same topic.