I’m really fascinated by this Living Books programming. The other thing that I found very intriguing was the concept of a ‘listening lab’, and more generally, the idea of libraries as ‘recepticals’ of community memory. I haven’t got all of my thoughts in a row here, exactly, but I think I’ve got something worth exploring.
I was recently at the Bloomingdale Branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL), and they have a very small display about their history, including a couple of news articles and programs from past events. They’ve also partnered with the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group to host a reference collection about the local neighborhood history. Other NYPL branches have extensive special collections related to specific neighborhood histories, such as the Chinatown Heritage Collection, and most Bronx branches have a section titled ‘Bronx Collection’ with titles related to the history and stories of the borough for every age group. I think these are all great examples of incorporating stories into the library space, but I also think these examples are all a little ‘retro’ within the context of a hyperlinked society.
The history collection at the Bloomingdale Library.
This brings me back to the things I found most interesting in this module: living books and listening. I think an incredible supplement to some of these neighborhood histories that exist at NYPL could be interviews and conversations with people living in the neighborhood that are reocrded and incorporated into a listening library. As much as I love the idea of live events with ‘living books’, I also think it’s important to record at least some of those interactions. Once you have the recordings, I feel like a lot could be done to create further projects–a series of podcats that focus on a particular topic or theme that comes up repeatedly in discussions, the creation of zine-guides to the collection, collaborative cataloging through some sort of card-sorting exercise with patrons. I feel thinking along these lines could really help invigorate the existing investment in neighborhood stories.
References
Bloomingdale Library. (2025). New York Public Library. https://www.nypl.org/locations/bloomingdale
Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group Library Collection. (n.d.). Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group. https://www.upperwestsidehistory.org/library-collection.html
Chinatown Heritage Collection. (2025). New York Public Library. https://www.nypl.org/about/locations/chatham-square/chinatown-heritage-collection
Mairn, C. and Terrana, J. (2018). A Library’s Listening Lab. https://287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/MairnListeningLab.pdf
Wollongong Living Books. (2025). City of Wollongong. https://wollongong.nsw.gov.au/my-community/events-and-programs/living-books