Lenox Library to Host Botanist Joan Edwards

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LENOX, Mass. — Lenox Library will continue its Distinguished Lecture Series on Sunday, April 7, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. with Dr. Joan Edwards, Samuel Fessenden Clarke Professor of Biology at Williams College, who will discuss "Conserving New England's Amazing Spring Flora."
 
According to a press release:
 
April brings a unique group of flowers to the New England landscape. Flowers including spring beauties, trilliums, hepaticas, violets, and Dutchman's breeches dot the forest floor taking advantage of the brief period when sunlight reaches the ground unimpeded by leaves of canopy trees. These ephemerals bloom early, set seed, and often disappear completely until the next spring. Globally, both flowers and their visitors face risk of extinction. Knowing how these flowers work is critical to preserving these gems in our landscape. In this talk, Joan Edwards will explore the natural history of spring ephemerals with a focus on floral design, how flowers interact with their spring insect visitors, and how they harness resiliency to deal with the uncertainty of changing climate.
 
About the presenter: Joan Edwards is the Samuel Fessenden Clarke Professor of Biology at Williams College. She is a botanist with a special focus on ultrafast plant movements and the conservation of flowers and their insect visitors.
 
Now in its 17th season, the Distinguished Lecture Series is organized and hosted by Dr. Jeremy Yudkin, a resident of the Berkshires and Professor of Music and Co-Director of the Center for Beethoven Research at Boston University. Lectures are free and open to the public. Please visit https://lenoxlib.org or the Library's Facebook page for more information.

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Lenox Library and Indie Lens Pop-Up Present The Librarians

LENOX, Mass.—On Saturday, February 7, 2026 at 2:00 p.m., Lenox Library and Indie Lens Pop-Up, presented by ITVS, INDEPENDENT LENS, will host a special free screening of The Librarians, the critically-acclaimed documentary that follows a network of besieged librarians as they unite to examine how book restriction policies are shaping library collections.

According to a press release:

From Oscar-nominated Director and Producer Kim A. Snyder (Death By Numbers, Newtown, Us Kids) and Executive Producer Sarah Jessica Parker, The Librarians takes viewers from Texas to Florida and beyond, where local libraries have become unexpected battlegrounds in a national struggle over parental control, intellectual freedom, and democracy itself. Sparked by the controversial "Krause List" in Texas, which targets 850 books centered on race and LGBTQIA+ stories, the film takes a deep investigative dive into the escalating movement against book banning. The film captures the courage and resilience of the everyday heroes, librarians, as well as concerned parents and students flanking them, who have become first responders in the fight for the freedom to read, standing defiantly against censorship at all costs.

After the screening, there will be an interactive panel discussion about censorship, its effects on democracy, and the broader implications for education and intellectual freedom:

Martin Garnar (he/him) is the director of the Amherst College Library and editor of the Intellectual Freedom Manual (10th ed.), the authoritative reference for librarians for day-to-day guidance on maintaining free and equal access to information for all people.

Jennifer Guerin (she/her) earned her M.A. in English from Georgetown University and her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of North Texas. She also received her Law for Librarians training from the American Library Association in May 2024. Jennifer currently serves as Librarian at W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School in Great Barrington, MA, where a complaint against Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer in a teacher's classroom made national headlines in 2024.

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