I appreciate StoryCorps’ animated videos tremendously because they highlight different stories. Some I related to, and their story resonated, while others left an impression about the lived experiences of someone. As an undergraduate, I conducted interviews informally to understand my family’s migration history for a class project. We unfortunately do not have many photos and items to cherish because it was left behind or lost along the way. The stories are what I get to keep. I have always felt that the power of stories is important for growing our empathy and understanding.
I believe the Living Library project, which uses people as books to “borrow”, would be interesting to implement in libraries everywhere, especially during this heightened clash of beliefs (Wentz, 2013; Wollongong, n.d.; Pew Research Center, 2019).
Image: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/10/10/partisan-antipathy-more-intense-more-personal/
Bringing stories to life from real people sharing their stories can be a great addition to combating book censorship. PEN America released the most banned book list from the 2023 to 2024 school year. There were over 10,000 bans targeting over 4,000 titles. Tolin (2025) writes, “this censorship…predominantly targets books about race and racism or individuals of color and also books on LGBTQ+ topics.” The Living Library project could be a surrogate for the books that are banned, which cuts down access to learning about marginalized voices. Guests can share their stories covering the same themes of banned books. Although, there should be effort to create a balanced collection to reflect users’ interests which can be developed to cover other areas not exclusive to challenged themes (Wentz, 2013).
References
Pew Research Center. (2019, October 10). Partisan antipathy: More intense, more personal [Report]. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/10/10/partisan-antipathy-more-intense-more-personal/
Popova, M. (2016). How libraries save lives. The Marginalian. https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/10/06/libraries-storycorps-bookmobile/
Tolin, L. (2025, February 24). Banned book list 2025. PEN America. https://pen.org/banned-books-list-2025/
Wentz, E. (2013, April 26). The human library: Sharing the community with itself. Public Libraries Online. https://publiclibrariesonline.org/2013/04/human_librar/
Wollongong living books. (n.d.). City of Wollongong. https://wollongong.nsw.gov.au/my-community/events-and-programs/living-books