Guest Contributor – Page 2 – The UncommonWealth

“Your Humble Petitioner”: William Caswell’s Success Against the Odds

Katie Drash Mapes, history graduate student at VCU and museum educator with Preservation Virginia, shares what she discovered about William Caswell, a free Black man,…

Guest ContributorMay 20, 2024

Public Libraries

A Whole New World: VR Programming at Colonial Heights

The Sphere in Las Vegas is a virtual reality building seating 18,000 viewers, and as the lights dim to darkness, these viewers become fully enveloped…

Guest ContributorMay 13, 2024

Virginia Authors

National Poetry Month 2024 With Melanie McCabe

Melanie McCabe is the author of three books of poetry: The Night Divers (a finalist for the most recent Library of Virginia Literary Awards), What…

Guest ContributorApril 26, 2024

Virginia Authors

National Poetry Month 2024 with Laura Bylenok

Laura Bylenok is the author of three books, including Living Room, winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry; Warp, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize;…

Guest ContributorApril 19, 2024

Virginia Authors

National Poetry Month 2024 with Gregory Orr

Gregory Orr is the author of thirteen collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Selected Books of the Beloved. He is also the…

Guest ContributorApril 12, 2024

Public Libraries

Survival Skills for the Zombie Apocalypse: Not Your Average Survivalist Program

Last year, during the swarm of programming that is summer reading, the Pulaski County Library System held a series of programs in collaboration with Claytor…

Guest ContributorApril 8, 2024

Public Libraries

This Library’s Knitting Program is Killing It

On a bone-chilling Wednesday evening in February, the Century Room on the lower level of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library’s Gordon Avenue branch is set up…

Guest ContributorMarch 11, 2024

Public Libraries

The Friends and Advocates Network (FAN): A Collective Impact Model of Advocacy

In the way back yonder year of 2020, the Fairfax County Public Library’s (FCPL) Board of Trustees accomplished something nearly unprecedented. In the County’s advertised…

Guest ContributorFebruary 12, 2024

Public Libraries

Go Traveling at Your Library

Public libraries offer many services to their communities. One of the more unique services available to some patrons via their library is U.S. passport application…

Guest ContributorJanuary 8, 2024

Public Libraries

Public Libraries Welcoming New Neighbors

At Massanutten Regional Library (MRL), one of the principal ways we serve refugees and immigrants is through accepting I-94 forms, and/or foreign driver’s licenses as…

Guest ContributorDecember 11, 2023

Public Libraries

The Human Library

"A Human Library?" I first became aware of this concept while preparing for an interview with Bina Venkataraman about her book, The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking…

Guest ContributorNovember 13, 2023

Doctor, Poisoner, Governor, Rebel: John Pott, America’s “Founding Physician”

From the earliest days of America’s founding, we as a nation have sought heroes to help tell our story. Whether iconic leaders like Washington and…

Guest ContributorNovember 1, 2023

Newspapers Public Libraries The Stacks

The History of Book Censorship in Virginia

This is a condensed excerpt is from a longer article, "From Berkeley to Beloved: Race and Sexuality in the History of Book Censorship in Virginia”,…

Guest ContributorOctober 6, 2023

Digital Projects Manuscripts & Special Collections

Reopening the Vestry Records of St. John’s Church

So begins the first entry in the oldest surviving volume from the Henrico Parish vestry records. That entry describes the meeting of six of the…

Guest ContributorSeptember 27, 2023

Archives Digital Projects

Documenting Lynching in Virginia: A Transcription Project at James Madison University

Mob violence against perceived threats to a local community has been a staple of US history, with its long tradition of vigilantism and “popular justice,”…

Guest ContributorSeptember 13, 2023