Join us for our annual Summer Reading Challenge! You can read your favorite books and join us for children’s & teen programs, activities and more. Challenges run from June 22 – August 14, 2026.
Click on a challenge below for more information!
Local support for the Newport Public Library Summer Reading Program is provided by the
Friends of the Newport Public Library.
The Newport Public Library has the following job opportunity available:
Help Shape the Future of Your Library
As part of our long-range planning, we want to better understand how the library can serve our community in the years ahead. Your feedback will help guide future library services, programs, collections, and spaces.
This survey takes about 3 minutes to complete. Responses are anonymous.
Thank You for taking the time to share your feedback!
Saturday, June 6 from 2:30 to 4:00 PM
All ages welcome!
Step back into the colonial era at our Colonial Family Life Fair! This Semiquincentennial program will introduce kids and caregivers alike to different aspects of daily life at the turn of the 19th century. Amazing local organizations will lead historical games, teach about toys, bring cool artifacts, perform a drum circle, and more! Partner organizations include the Aquidneck Island Intertribal Indian Council, Casey Farm (Historic New England), the Fort Adams Trust, the Ladies of the Greene, and the Newport Historical Society.
No registration required. This event is held in Aquidneck Park adjacent to the library. In case of inclement weather, it will be held in the Friends Room.
Join Our Adult Summer Reading Programming – Unearth a Story – by learning about Birding Tours as a Tool for Conservation in the Era of Biodiversity Loss on Wednesday June 3rd in the Friends Program Room.
As wildlife populations continue their decline due to a suite of factors, most notably habitat loss, perhaps the greatest tool we have to effectively conserve healthy habitats and the birds they contain is education. Distance-based birding tours that visit the most biodiverse regions of our planet offer an opportunity to engage individuals and create better stewards of the world by exposing the intricate and ever-important connections between birds and their habitats that have evolved over millions of years. These tours also serve dual purpose by empowering local communities to protect the wild places in their own backyard. For nearly 15-years, Charles Clarkson has been leading birding tours to the neotropics with the express purpose of sharing the amazing story of birds with others. His tours have employed many local and indigenous community members and have helped to spotlight the plight of tropical habitats and tropical wildlife. Join us for a talk exploring the primary drivers of decline in birds, the threats they face as our climate changes and human-induced habitat loss continues and how individuals can make a difference in their own backyards and through ecotourism.
Please register to reserve your spot.
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Charles Clarkson was born in the mountains of central Virginia and lived out his childhood playing in the woods and admiring nature. As an adolescent, Charles began to gravitate towards birds and after his first college course in Ornithology at Virginia Commonwealth University, he decided that there could be no more satisfying life than one devoted to his feathered friends.
He later went on to complete his Master’s degree and was employed as a contractor for the Department of Defense on Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base in North Carolina. He went to UVA to pursue his doctorate in avian toxicology and later taught at Salve Regina and Roger Williams Universities.
Charles currently works for the American Bird Conservancy, leading conservation-themed birding tours to locations around the world. Since 2015, Charles has also owned and operated his own birding tour company (antbirdtours.com), where he takes groups on experiential and educational birding tours to destinations throughout Central and South America and Europe.
Join us this spring for our adult tech programs.
Registration is required. Open to Ages 18+. Click on a session below to register.
May 7th- Computer Basics
May 21st- Internet Basics
June 11th- Cut the Cable