Library News

With 500+ kids screaming at the top of their lungs, you’d think the Beatles were in the house—or Taylor Swift. The enthusiasm was real, but the star of the show was books and reading.

This year, recipe books and cards in the McClung Collection’s annual holiday cooking display feature Stella DeVault and Malinda Russell, local bakers who honed their culinary skills and business acumen during the days before the Civil War. 

Edward Joseph Boling was born to Samuel Riley Boling and Nerissa Clark Boling on February 19, 1922, in Sevier County. By 1930, his family moved to Knoxville, and as a high schooler, he worked as an usher at a local theater.

Evelyn Darst was born to Guy Darst and Blanche Allison Darst on April 22, 1919, in Knoxville. She graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1940, where she was the first woman editor of the Tennessee Volunteer, the school’s yearbook.

Marvin Gerald Krieger was born to Abraham and Pauline Krieger on July 31, 1920, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Abraham moved the family to Knoxville when he joined the Tennessee Valley Authority as a civil engineer.

Aubrey Lee Totten was born to Riley Totten and Anna Scales Totten on December 5, 1906, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Aubrey moved to Knoxville sometime in the 1930s. On September 11, 1940, he married Knoxville-native Annetha Vineyard.

When the Clarence Brown Film Festival takes place this fall, audiences will have the rare chance to see one of Brown's most renowned silent films, which had ostensibly gone missing for over 50 years.

Theodore Baehr, Jr. retired from the Knox County Public Library’s Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection in the East Tennessee History Center on May 1^st.

     The Erskine-Williams photograph album of unidentified Black portraiture at the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection contains more than 30 portraits, mostly cabinet cards of well-dressed men and women, as well as a few tintypes and cartes de-visite.

Knoxville likes to flaunt her literary giants -- and rightly so. After all, what other town our size can claim a significant handful of Pulitzer Prize- winning writers and an Oscar nod or two? We do have a lot to gloat about.

Knox County Public Library will host its first college fair organized by teens on Thursday, March 2, 2023, 3:30–5:30 at the Powell Branch Library.

When longtime local banker and early rock 'n' roll bandsman Bob Adams passed away on January 3, 2023, a piece of Knoxville’s music history went with him.