On Tuesday, the Lawrence Public Library celebrated Langston Hughes’ life with an all-day poetry reading. It was just part of the busy activity schedule maintained by Sandra Wiechert, community relations coordinator for the library.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of Langston Hughes’ birth, the library held readings of his poetry over the loudspeakers every half-hour and hour throughout the day. Everyone from library staff to college students performed the readings.

“Library staff and typical patrons and community members  all walks of life and all ages (participated),” Wiechert said.

She also said that it was an entirely new type of event and way of celebrating literature for the library.

“We’ve never had any (events) like this,” she said. “This is new and we hope it’s going to go over very well.”

According to Wiechert, the idea for the Langston Hughes poetry reading was brought up by a few people, but quickly gathered interest and support.

Hughes wrote newspaper articles, plays, books, essays and novels, but is most widely known for his poetry. In addition, he spent a good portion of his childhood in Lawrence before going on to become involved in the Harlem Renaissance.

Although the poetry was performed every half hour, Wiechert said that the interest level was high enough that it could have been done continually.

“I think we had enough interest in it that we could have done it that way,” she said.

In addition to celebrating the life of Hughes, the library also is celebrating the life and literature of John Steinbeck this month by showing films based on his books. This year is the 100th anniversary of his birth as well.

“Of Mice and Men” will kick off the month-long event on Friday night. The series will continue with “The Grapes of Wrath” on April 12, “Tortilla Flat” on April 19 and conclude on April 26 with “East of Eden.” All films will begin at 7 p.m. and will be shown in the auditorium.

According to Wiechert, ideas for events are not difficult to find.

“They just kind of materialize,” she said.

She does do her fair share of keeping up with what is going on, both in literature and in the community.

“I try to do a lot of seeking, reading and listening,” she said.

 Sarah Adkins is a student at Baker University in Baldwin.