While reviewing module 10 my mind kept circling back to one idea: Erik Boekesteijn’s mantra, quoted by Michael Stephens, that libraries should keep stories, share stories, and make stories. Reading the documents from module 10, I started to think about the actual framework for the work, so I want to walk through each part in order.
Keeping stories is where the module begins, with Chad Mairn’s description of the old CD cabinet at his library. He calls it “the hidden chambers at the tomb of Tutankhamun,” tightly packed and unbrowsable unless a user already knew the call number. That image stayed with me, because it shows how a collection can preserve something but still not have it be accessible. His Listening Lab is what keeping looks like when it is built for discovery rather than just preservation alone.
The Narrative Inquiry post shifts the focus toward sharing. Stephens describes the research interview itself as “a seriously compassionate way of reaching out, listening, and learning,” not simply a data-collection method. His example question, “What would make your life easier?” rather than “What do you like about the library?”, shifts the imagining onto the person being asked, echoing Mairn’s decision to let users find their own way through the music rather than directing them to it.
That same idea carries into making. In “With a Little Twist” and the Wholehearted Librarian chapter “Telling Stories” both point to recording and storytelling programs, from StoryCorps to Mill Valley’s live storytelling series, as ways libraries turn ordinary moments into shared artifacts.
Taken together, these four pieces suggest that keeping, sharing, and making all require the librarian to release a bit of control. I am still considering what that means for my own practice, and I appreciate that the question surfaced this early in the program.
References
Mairn, C & Terrana, J. (2022). A Library’s Listening Lab. https://287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/MairnListeningLab.pdf
Stephens, M. (2019). Office Hours: With a Little Twist & Power of the Pod – INFO 287 – The Hyperlinked Library.Sjsu.Edu. https://287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/office-hours-with-a-little-twist/
Stephens, M. (2019). Wholehearted Librarianship. ALA Editions.
Stephens, M. (2020). Office Hours: Narrative Inquiry – Tame the Web. In Tametheweb.com. https://tametheweb.com/2020/04/09/office-hours-narrative-inquiry/
