The Library Vault

Thanks to our fabulous patrons, Russell Library has been nominated for CT Insider’s 2026 competition for Best Cultural Attraction for Families. If you look at the listing of other nominees, you might notice that we are the only library nominated. As a devoted reader of CT Insider’s Connecticut Magazine myself, it was news to me that a library could be nominated. We’re all very flattered to be included, especially since the official who notified us of our nomination told us that we were in “the Top Five Finalists” for the competition.

For those of you unfamiliar with Russell Library, you might be wondering why a public library would be nominated for Best Cultural Attraction for Families at all. While I can’t presume to read the minds of our patrons who nominated us, as Head of the Youth & Family Learning department, I can show you some of our offerings for families in the library. I’ll start with the newer additions.

Several years ago, we remade a large room just left of our Lobby into a gaming area designed for young adults – including everyone from preteens and their families to college students. We call the room The Space, and it also houses our young adult circulating collections like graphic novels, manga, fiction, Playaway audio books, and video games.

The Space had already housed two gaming PCs, two regular computers, a mega chess set, dozens of self-serve board games, and an air hockey table. Now it also includes a custom made building table with thousands of LEGO building blocks free for in-library use. Once you’re bored of that, you can play ping pong to your hearts’ content over by the Velcro “dart” board and Bat Woman. But don’t neglect the air hockey table in the corner (its feelings get hurt).

On the other side of the Lobby, in our kids’ wing, families regularly spend hours playing together. We have play-based, museum-quality installations and toys scattered throughout the wing: everything from a fully stocked train table, to a rotating wall maze, to build-your-own-coaster, to a toddler gym and Duplo panel.

Once your kiddo(s) get tired of trains, beads mazes, dominoes, and books, you can take them to the Activity Room for pure play. Remade into an indoor playroom in 2023, the features a permanent kid-sized kitchen fully equipped with pretend play food and dishes, a ball pit, a wall-mounted ball slide, a chalk board wall for drawing, and dozens of puppets with theater. The puppets can be checked out and taken home like books, and they often top our list of most checked out items in the library.

While you’re here, catch one of our fun-and-learning-filled free library events. Our Youth & Family Learning programs are drop-in with no registration required. In addition to daily story times and play-based programs like Play Pals, we host weekly special events like Yoga for Littles, Science Saturday, petting zoos, concerts, and art workshops.

We host so many free events for families that even I have trouble keeping track of them. You can get event notifications delivered to your inbox with one of our library newsletters. All of our events are free and open to the public. We have many events for adults, too.

If all this wasn’t enough to keep your family entertained, you can often come see us hatching chicken eggs at the kids’ desk. Kids of all ages can share the wonder of life as eggs develop into the fluffy babies we love at springtime. Right now, we have our latest batch of eggs incubating. We expect them to hatch around Tuesday, April 14th. Even if you can’t make it into the library, you can check up on them and even watch them hatch from home through our live Chick Cam.

All of our facilities and events are free and open to the public. While you’re here, you can use any public library card from Connecticut to check out our tens of thousands of books, movies, audiobooks, games, and magazines. That includes hundreds of Tonies and Yotos and their players. You can return these items to any public library in Connecticut, in case you don’t live nearby.

So while I won’t pressure you to vote for us, I will ask you to help us spread the word about these free resources for learning and fun for families in Connecticut. As a parent myself, I know how expensive fun and enriching family activities can be. Russell Library can help.