ARLINGTON, Texas – In a time where it’s easy to neglect our need for real, in-the-flesh interactions, the staff at the Arlington Public Library continues to make spaces for citizens to gather, communicate, and learn a little something.

Angela Harris, one of Arlington Public Library’s adult services librarians, serves on their programming team to help bring more events to Arlington’s public. She said the library tries to host eight to 10 larger scale events each year.

The library’s programs are planned and executed by two teams, one focused on programs for adults and one for children. Teams are made up of librarians from all the library’s branches. While smaller events occur at all locations, larger events tend to take place at the downtown and east branches as they have larger spaces to accommodate larger crowds.

When deciding which programs to host, Harris said they factor in survey responses from attendees, librarian’s ideas, and community need.

“We’re big on community need so we do a lot of outreach,” Harris said. “We do get a lot of feedback just when we’re out in the community.”

Harris said that events are planned in bulk for the upcoming season. Events are planned about three to four months ahead of time and follow a planning outline.

Each event put on by the library requires a team of people to put it on. In addition to the planning team, large scale events can take an additional 10 to 12 volunteers to execute. The planning team works with a volunteer coordinator to make sure they have enough people to pull it off. Even so, each event has one lead organizer to help it run smoothly.

For Harris, that was the Indie Author Day Book Festival, held this year on Nov. 2 at the George W. Hawkes Downtown Library.

Attendees entered the library and were greeted by a smiling staff who welcomed them in and gave them a wristband and a ticket. The tickets would be used in a raffle for a signed copy of the books provided by the attending authors. Authors of all genres filled the library’s ReBrary A and B rooms, showing off their books and chatting away with those who stopped by. Workshops and readings were held by the authors on the second floor with attendees choosing to come and go as they pleased.

Harris said it was important to highlight local authors during the event, focusing on anyone based in the DFW area instead of trying to get the largest names possible.

“Arlington is a big city in its own right, and there’s a lot of local talent and local businesses that we want to support, so we try to build a lot of our programming around supporting our local community,” Harris said.

Authors were able to sign up to exhibit their work in the author alley as well as submit a presentation they could give during the workshops.

Harry Hall returned to the Indie Author Book Festival as an exhibiting author, this time hosting a workshop of his own.

In his workshop, Hall shared his experience on the importance of having a press package for your book. He shared his own press package and the benefits he has found after creating it. He then answered questions from attendees about how to best create their own.

In the author alley, Hall talked with attendees and authors alike, networking and showing off his latest book, The Pedestriennes, America’s Forgotten Superstars. His book has won him an Independent Publisher Award and a Writer’s Digest Award.

“Find a story that hasn’t been told and tell it,” Hall said.

This rings true for Sairam Marupudi, an English student at the University of Texas at Arlington. She attended the event with her father, winning one of the signed books available as a raffle prize. Marupudi had heard of the event from the library’s email newsletter but was encouraged to go by a professor.

Marupudi herself wants to be a published author in the future and said that getting to meet the writers was a fun experience.

Though there are no more large scale events coming up for the rest of the year, Harris said the planning team is already working on the events for the upcoming season.

To view an interactive map of Arlington Public Library locations, please click here.