The value of storytelling has never been more powerful as libraries have shifted toward becoming community hubs and away from the notion of being book warehouses. Libraries and library staff might arrange an environment for a community to form by providing programming events, but sharing stories with each other is a necessary step for a sense of community to grow and thrive. I previously explored storytelling via a traveling exhibit where veterans shared their stories through tattoos. This inspired me to ask my colleagues about transformative experiences that patrons have shared with them. In my experience, these heart-warming stories tend to accumulate quickly for public library workers, but I’ve selected a few short anecdotes to share anonymously.
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“One of my favorite patrons came in with tears in her eyes. The mother of one of her students had passed away unexpectedly and she was looking for books that could help. I assisted the patron and listened as she told me many wonderful things about the mother. The next time I saw her, she was feeling better and told me that the books helped everyone in the class start healing.” — D., ILL department head
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“I helped a student digitize family letters from a deceased relative—which is not a service we usually provide in the archive. They were overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity to keep them forever, and that this would be the first time they’d be able to share the letters with their entire family.” — K., archivist
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“A new patron came into the library with her two young children. After she registered, I made book recommendations and pulled items based on what she said she’d like to try reading. The next time she returned, she told me the books made her feel less alone as a new mom living alone and struggling with depression because her husband deployed. She became a regular and we spoke often ever since.” — T., technician
A common thread I see amongst these anecdotes is that these staff members took the time to take on the role of care workers. They embodied Tronto’s (2012) ethics of care—responsibility, attentiveness, competence, and responsiveness—and resolved their patrons’ issues in ways that went beyond providing general service. They actively listened and heard the stories embedded within these people, even if the difficulties the person was facing weren’t apparent until later like in T’s story. Their acts of compassion were small but had significant impact.
“So, be trustworthy to build trust. Be transparent to build transparency. Be inclusive to build inclusion. Be generous and curious to build generosity and curiosity.” — Powers & Fife, 2025, p. 106
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I had an interaction with a faculty member just the other day who returned an inter-library loan book about the neuroscience behind learning. He pointed out a graph from a language memory experiment which was ironically relevant to Dr. Stephens’ (n.d.) presentation on emoji use. Participants were told a set of concepts and then asked to write, draw a picture of, or translate them into another language. After a break, they were asked to write, draw, or translate the same ideas again without a reminder of what they were. Most participants could draw representations of these ideas but failed quite badly at writing or translating them after taking a break, showing the importance of images in language and cognition (Paivio, 2010).
I loved hearing about this experiment and felt that it reflected various statistics in Adobe’s emoji trend report, especially that 90% of emoji users believe that it’s easier to express themselves with emoji, and that 89% agree that emoji bridge language barriers (Hunt, 2021). With that I leave you with the emoji titles included in this post and ask: what emoji would tell your library stories?
References
Hunt, P. D. (2021, July 15). World emoji day 2021: How emoji can help create a more empathetic world, for all of us 💞. Adobe Blog. https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2021/07/15/global-emoji-trend-report-2021
Paivio, A. (2010). Mental representations: A dual coding approach. Oxford University Press.
Powers, A., & Fife, D. (2025, March). Psychological safety in libraries: It’s a team sport. College & Research Libraries News, 86(3), 104-107. https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.86.3.104
Stephens, M. (n.d.). Hyperlinked library: The power of stories (video with slides). https://sjsu-ischool.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=25a905bc-6739-4f68-afea-af10013f32fb
Tronto, J. (2012). Partiality based on relational responsibilities: Another approach to global ethics. Ethics and Social Welfare 6(3), 303-316. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2012.704058
I loved your anecdotes. Here’s one of mine. At a coffee shop I used to work at, a woman that I was helping broke into tears when her coffee was made incorrectly. I was (in my recollection) kind to her, which I think prompted her to tell me that her dad had recently died. I came out from behind the counter and asked if I could give her a hug, which is something I hardly even do with my own family (I don’t know what came over me). From that experience and many more at the library, I realize that sometimes holding space for people to tell their stories is more important than having anything significant to say in response.
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Thank you for sharing your story at the coffee shop, @suedonnim. I like your wording here of “holding space” because I think it ties in to the notion of building communities and safe spaces (libraries!) for people to be human.
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