To connect our past and present and to celebrate the history and culture of the region, Blount County Public Library has initiated a Southern Appalachian Studies program. This growing project includes a speaker series, a creative-nonfiction writing course, collection development and a rotating display. The writing program, Foothills Voices, brings together diverse amateur writers to craft narratives about the people of the region, which will be collected into a published anthology. The speaker series has brought historians, naturalists, crafters and reenactors to the library to present their specialties. Author events and a book club are being planned. Three librarians who have helped to initiate the Southern Appalachian Studies program will describe the steps toward achieving the program’s goals and will show how the program meaningfully connects our wider community with the culture and history of our region, hopefully inspiring similar ventures at other libraries.
