Holocaust Memorial Lecture & Book Discussion Featuring Dara Horn, Thursday October 19

National Jewish Book Award winning author, Dara Horn delivered the 2023 Holocaust Memorial Lecture at the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College on October 3, 2023. Join us to watch a recording of the lecture, In the Haunted Present: Jews in a Non-Jewish World which is based on her latest and award winning book, People Love Dead Jews.

Local History: Rainbow Voices - Seacoast LGBTQ Audio & Video Archives, Monday October 16

Come explore the collection of audio and video archives from the Seacoast LGBTQ+ community! The Seacoast NH LGBT History Project has teamed up with the Portsmouth Public Library to make these archives available to the public. Learn how the collections came about, what's included, and how you can access them. Tom Kaufhold and Holly Cashman, collaborators on the NH Seacoast LGBT History Project, will share clips from their oral history project and other video archives at this virtual "ribbon cutting" event.

Registration is not required. 

Genealogy Workshop: Research Huddle, Sunday October 15

Join us at the library in the Special Collections Room and be part of our Research Huddle! In sports, a huddle is when the players gather in a circle to strategize, motivate, or celebrate. We think genealogists should do the same!

This is the perfect opportunity to dig into your personal history and tell your family’s story. Use the library’s print collections and research databases to progress with your fact-finding. We’ll gather to use library resources, share our successes, learn from fellow researchers, and overcome our research stumbling blocks!

Film Screening: Rebecca, Thursday October 12

2020. PG-13.123 Minutes.

After a whirlwind romance in Monte Carlo with handsome widower Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer), a newly married young woman (Lily James) arrives at Manderley, her new husband's imposing family estate on a windswept English coast. Naive and inexperienced, she begins to settle into the trappings of her new life, but finds herself battling the shadow of Maxim's first wife, the elegant and urbane Rebecca, whose haunting legacy is kept alive by Manderley's sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas).

Ukraine & Russia: Understanding the Conflict, Online, Tuesday October 10

Join us to gain a greater understanding of the conflict ongoing between Ukraine and Russia with an expert in Russian politics and society, Rebecca McGory. She will describe the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations and the events that led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 to contextualize the ongoing conflict. She will provide information about the current status of the war and all its moving parts, including the international relationships driving the hostilities.

Library Strategic Planning Forum: Sunday October 1

The Portsmouth Public Library is creating a new Strategic Plan and we have received over 2300 responses to our recent survey which will help with the planning.

We look forward to reviewing the analysis and moving forward. We will hold  three community forums to  tease out some questions through a discussion with the community. We hope many of you will choose to participate in one of these 90-minute sessions to share your thoughts about the library and what services, spaces, staffing and programming you would like to see here in the future.

Banned Book Week Film Screening: Storm Center, Thursday Oct 5

1956. Unrated. 86 Minute Runtime.

During the 1950s, a small-town librarian is shunned by the locals after she refuses the City Council's request to remove a book on Communism from the library's shelves.

Help us celebrate Banned Book Week! “Our 2023 Banned Books Week theme – ‘Let Freedom Read’ – captures what’s at stake for our democracy: that the safety of our right to speak and think freely is directly in proportion to our right to read." American Library Association