The Port Washington Public Library has a busy two weeks coming. The Cowsills return to its stage on Friday, November 13, a Stony Brook historian explains how scholars and librarians ended up working as spies in World War II on Sunday, November 15, and a gallery of living moss and vines is on view through December 5.

The Cowsills, back on Library Drive

Bob, Susan and Paul Cowsill play the library's Lapham Room on Friday, November 13, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. It is a return visit: the library describes the trio as having made Port Washington their Long Island residence, and the evening brings harmonies, stories and the family band's hits.

The Cowsills began as a family act with siblings Bill, Barry and John and their mother, Barbara, and more than sixty years after their first single, Bob, Paul and Susan are still touring under the name. The concert is paid for by the Friends of the Library.

Registration is required and a library card is needed to sign up. Port Washington residents get priority registration, and registration closes at the start of the show.

Book and Dagger: when librarians went to war

On Sunday, November 15, from 2:30 to 4 p.m., the Friends of the Library's scholarly lecture series, FOL University, hosts Dr. Elyse Graham, a Stony Brook University professor and the author of Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II.

The book follows a group of academics whose skills with archives, languages and research made them useful to American intelligence during the war against the Nazis. Graham's talk takes up the argument that the war was fought on battlefields and may have been won in libraries. She appears in conversation with John O'Connell, a former president of the library's Board of Trustees, and books will be available to buy and have signed. The program is in the Lapham Meeting Room, and registration is required.

A garden in the gallery

In the library's Adler Gallery, the New York City artist Natalie Collette Wood is showing Ghost Garden, on view from November 3 through December 5. Wood builds layered installations from living and organic materials, including moss, native plants, flowers and vines, combined with found objects, textiles and photographs. Her work draws on the plants and materials she finds around her in the Bronx and looks at how nature moves into and takes back domestic and built spaces.

Her recent projects include a solo exhibition at the Sugar Hill Children's Museum and work presented at Wave Hill, the New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Andrew Freedman Home. She gives an artist reception and talk on Saturday, December 5, at 2 p.m.

Cow Neck in the Revolution

Also on view through December, in the library's History Center Annex, is Cow Neck in the Revolution, presented with the Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society for the 250th anniversary of American independence. The peninsula now called Port Washington was occupied by British forces for seven years during the war. The exhibit covers families forced to quarter enemy troops, children pressed into service and pirate raids, along with the local Patriots who fought, the residents who helped the cause in secret and the neighbors who stayed loyal to the Crown.

How to go

The Port Washington Public Library is at 1 Library Drive. Hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Register for the concert and the lecture through the library's events calendar, or call 516-883-4400.

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