The 6 Best Borrowed Podcast Episodes
1) Goodbye to All Fines
On October 5th, 2021, all three public library systems in New York City eliminated late fines. The change was 125 years in the making, and it made us think: why did public libraries start charging lat...Show More
2) Getting Home
It’s not an uncommon experience to be unstably housed in this country. From Brooklyn to San Francisco, communities often turn to public libraries for valuable information, social services and for a sa...Show More
3) Decolonizing Dewey
A lot had changed since Melvil Dewey came up with a classification system to organize all known and not-yet-known knowledge into a string of numbers and search terms. And yet, hundreds of thousands of...Show More
4) New Libraries, Old Places
Libraries weren't always located in their own stately buildings. Many of our branches used to operate out of pharmacies, laundry rooms, storefronts, and more! In celebration of our first new branch in...Show More
5) Free Brooklyn
Four hundred years later, this country has yet to reckon with the legacy of slavery. And that is no less true for Brooklyn. This episode, we’re taking a cue from The 1619 Project and telling important...Show More
6) New Americans
Immigration is a pressing topic in our political landscape right now, with concerns about ICE raids and immigration bans. In this episode, we listen to inspiring stories of recent asylees, the case fo...Show More
7) We are the Environment: Silent Spring’s Enduring Wisdom
When Silent Spring came out in 1962, it was an instant best-seller and led to the establishment of the EPA, as well as the ban of harmful pesticides such as DDT. But Rachel Carson’s seminal work also ...Show More
8) Molly Crabapple on Making Art in a Turbulent World
Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer who documents the extremes, from nightclubs to war zones. She’s also the author of several books, including Drawing Blood and Brothers of the Gun, a memoir of t...Show More
9) Art Spiegelman on Resistance, Memory, and Speaking Up
Art Spiegelman is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the graphic novel Maus, the story of his parents’ experience during the Holocaust. We got to sit down with Spiegelman at Brooklyn Public Library’...Show More
10) Maus and the Power of Images
Art Spiegelman’s Maus almost single-handedly elevated comics from throw-away inserts in newspapers to a serious literary art worthy of winning the highest award in book publishing. But it’s not an acc...Show More