Reflection on the Power of Stories: Let the Music Play

Music has long served as a mode of storytelling across time, cultural, language, and composition. Music tells stories, and people tell stories about music. Before I ever worked in a library, I worked at a small vinyl record shop during college. I discovered a lot of music from browsing the bins on slow days, but even more so from customers who would come in. They would find a certain record, or hear the one I was playing, and launch into a story about how that album was made, where they were when it came out, how they secured a physical copy, and of course, memories of seeing a musician or band perform live. Music I have come to love that predate my birth takes on new meaning in the context of these stories from customers who experienced the cultural moments that shaped these records. Learning how much an album meant to them made it mean that much more to me, even if somewhat vicariously. 

It is common, or at least was for many years, for libraries to have CD and other media collections for borrowing or in-library usage. I recently walked through the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts branch located at Lincoln Center, which is known for its film & tape archive, but I was impressed by the size of the circulating CD collection shelved, where a quick browse led me to find several beloved albums. There sat so much physical media, full of discs, song lyric booklets, diverse album art and track listings. I returned to thinking about something I think about often as a librarian and as a music lover, which is the shift from ownership to access.

 Libraries are now less likely to own digital resources, but rather have licenses to access them. Patrons for the most part do not care about the model from which it comes, as long as they can get the information, media, or other content that they need as efficiently as possible. While vinyl sales continue to rise in popularity, a vast majority of people with connected devices access music through streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Pandora, as opposed to owning an album on tape, CD, vinyl, or purchased mp3s. For younger listeners, streaming has been the main listening format in their lifetimes. But much like our music tastes, how we listen to and share music does not have to be a linear evolution. 

I was born in the 1990s, and along with many of my peers, I have a deep interest in music from this time or earlier. I have learned a lot about artists, influences, trends, and history that surround musical moments in time thanks to stories from older individuals who were a part of these scenes and often documented them in some way. Much like the conversations I had while working in a record shop, there are ways we can continue to bridge generational gaps of interest and knowledge on subjects like music that bring community members together in dialogue. 

Reading this week about the Listening Lab at St. Petersburg College Library demonstrates how incorporating a physical music media collection of vinyl records allows students to experience music listening in an exciting new-old way (Mairn & Terrana, 2018). Giving users the opportunity to (gently) use a record player shows the care and patience required for the listening process. This experimentation, exploration, and play, are all ways of learning in the hyperlinked library. Music as storytelling presents a number of channels through which libraries can embrace a time-transcending media form powerful enough to captivate audiences of all ages. 

References
Mairn, C., & Terrana, J. (2022). A library’s Listening Lab. https://287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/MairnListeningLab.pdf