Borrowed

As 2024 comes to a close, we wanted to share with you an episode that we produced all the way back in 2020. That year, we went to Coney Island to record the Coney Island Polar Bear Club, the group of swimmers that congregate on Coney Island every Sunday in winter to swim in the frigid ocean as a way to renew themselves. It’s a fun one, and we hope you enjoy!

Graphic novels, Haitian-American book bingo, and The Power Broker. These are just a few of the book clubs happening at Brooklyn Public Library. This episode, we take a tour around the borough to listen in on our patrons' reading habits and ask why we still read together.

We're pulling out all the stops for the first annual Freedom to Read Day of Action on Saturday, October 19th! Hear from libraries in Los Angeles, San Diego, Hoboken, NJ and Austin, TX about what they're doing to promote the freedom to read. And, if you're in Brooklyn, meet us on the steps of Central Library this Saturday for a book rally!

For Banned Books Week this year, we’re returning to our award-winning series, Borrowed and Banned. Because the fight isn’t over. In 2023, the American Library Association documented a 65% increase in the number of book titles challenged across the country. 

Listen to the first episode of the series about what happened in one Oklahoma town when their freedom to read was challenged. And how one teacher’s response caught the nation’s atten

Bedford-Stuyvesant is perhaps one of Brooklyn’s most iconic neighborhoods. Its tree-lined streets and grand brownstones have been here for over 150 years. This episode, a re-broadcast from 2019, tells the story of Bed-Stuy through the lives of three women who set down roots here in different ways: activist Hattie Carthan, writer Paule Marshall, and novelist Naomi Jackson. 

Splitting her time between Athens, Georgia and Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Nicole A. Taylor is a food writer and author of several cookbooks. She sat down with BPL’s Bed-Stuy Tea podcast to discuss finding and preserving her Southern voice, the pleasures of restaurant research, and her favorite local spots to eat and drink.

It's summer and school's out! No matter what age you are, you can spend your summer at the library with book lists and activities galore. We go over the facts and stats of BPL's popular Culture Pass program, which has helped thousands of New Yorkers visit museums and performance spaces in the city ... for free!

Brooklyn Public Library has been hosting Drag Story Hours since 2016. It's one of our most popular, colorful, and well-attended events for kids. In this episode, we explore why Drag Story Hour NYC is important, and how it’s had to change in recent years in response to an increasingly tense political climate.

Outside of Brooklyn, Arthur Miller's name has largely faded from memory. On this episode, we tell the story of the Black community leader who was killed by NYPD chokehold in 1978, the movement pushed forward as a result of his death, and the ways that Brooklyn Public Library’s Center for Brooklyn History helps to keep the story alive.

Listen in on one of BPL's most popular art programs: a theater workshop where, once a week, budding thespians come together to read plays, talk about character motivations, and dig into some surprisingly emotional and political topics.

We revisit an episode from January 2021 in honor of National Library Workers Day, and ask: what do librarians do all day? When they're not planning programs or working the reference desk, these librarians are also obscure trivia players, birders and ... sword fighters! 

Teens and older adults are perhaps the two age groups you might think have the least in common. But a new program at BPL seeks to bring the two generations together ... by having them debate.

Brooklyn has 62 neighborhood libraries, each with a distinct architecture, culture, and soul. To kick off the new season and to celebrate our audio stories coming home to Brooklyn, we'll take a tour of the borough with the help of our neighborhood libraries and some of our stalwart patrons who visited all 62 of them ... in a matter of days!

Student activists in York, Pennsylvania organized a silent protest when hundreds of books were banned from their classrooms, paving the way for lasting change in their community. In this final episode of the series, we tackle the challenge head-on: from encouraging open dialogue about the books on our shelves to the ongoing work of protecting the freedom to read. 

Library workers often risk their livelihoods when they speak out against censorship, spurring community members to pick up the fight for intellectual freedom. We tell the story of how one Louisiana parish came together to defend their library amidst book challenges, tip lines, and even sign burning.

Maia Kobabe's debut memoir, Gender Queer, was the most frequently banned book in 2021 and 2022. We talked with Maia about what it's like to be on the recieving end of so many challenges, and the importance of public libraries.

Despite being one of the most frequently banned authors, Toni Morrison’s work has inspired countless others to tell stories outside the mainstream. We take a closer look at Morrison's writing, her legacy, and her impact on the anti-censorship movement.

George M. Johnson talks about their debut Young Adult memoir All Boys Aren't Blue, the support of their family, their love of Toni Morrison, and the importance of standing against book bans. 

Banning of so-called “classics” grabs public attention, but books like To Kill a Mockingbird and 1984 don't need your defense. It's the more recently published titles by and about people with marginalized identities that are most at risk. This episode, we investigate what we mean when we call a book a "classic," and hear from young people about what books they care about today. 

Mike Curato talks about his award-winning graphic novel Flamer, his writing practice, and how it feels to have his story vaulted into national headlines as parents, politicians, and school boards campaign to remove his book from school and library shelves.

Over the past few years, school board races have become more heated and more political — and books have become the center of that political storm. We look at what happened in Keller, Texas when an ultra-conservative group took over the school board.

The birth of obscenity laws in the 1870s provides a cautionary tale for the present moment, when far-right conservatives incorrectly label books “sexually explicit” as a way to provoke outrage in communities nationwide. This episode, we delve into the parallels that history can reveal and hear from students in Texas fighting for their freedom to read.

When a high school teacher in Norman, Oklahoma shared a QR code with her students that would grant them access to BPL’s digital collection, she took a stand against a restrictive state law. That act of resistance made her first day of school ... also her last. 

On Borrowed and Banned, we tell the story of America’s ideological war with its bookshelves by talking with the people most impacted: the students on the frontlines, the librarians and teachers whose livelihoods are endangered when they speak up, and the writers whose books have become political battleground. 

Over 14,000 patrons have signed up for their first library card since Jay-Z's exhibit came to Central Library in mid-July. We talk to Brooklynites traveling around the borough to collect all 13 Jay-Z library cards, and ask what The Book of HOV means to them. 

Thanks to BPL's Pathways to Leadership program—a scholarship and mentorship initiative designed to diversify the field of librarianship—they will soon be fully-certified librarians. Kesha Powell and Amen Emile have been working at BPL for over 20 years in various roles, from public safety to circulation manager. 

If you ask Hannah Jean what would be her greatest wish, she will say running Brooklyn Public Library. Last month, she got to do just that. 

Meet the Luddite Club, a group of library-loving, flip-phone-toting teenagers in Brooklyn who come together every week out of a shared sense that social media and smart phones just aren't working for them. 

Asylum seekers continue to arrive in New York City. We look at how one faith-based organization is responding to the continuing crisis in the hope that these personal narratives offer a window into the experience of migrants in Brooklyn today.

Este episodio es sobre los solicitantes de asilo en la ciudad de Nueva York. Estamos compartiendo estas narrativas personales con la esperanza de que escucharlas devuelva la humanidad a esta crisis. 

Last year, New York City began to see an increase in the number of migrants seeking asylum. The library is a small part of the city-wide response to help those seeking refuge. This episode, we'll talk about library and city efforts with Manuel Castro, the Commissioner at the Mayor's Office for Immigrant Affairs.

Did you know there are some public libraries that loan out snowshoes? And cement mixers? And Santa suits? This episode, we try to calculate what your public library is worth, and ask how you can give back to support public libraries.

With tablets, Legos, and coding, these fourteen teams from library branches across Brooklyn met at Central Library to compete in the final championship of Brooklyn Robotics League — resulting in what is surely one of our loudest stories ever. 

We love love at the library, so for Valentine's Day this year, we're devoting the episode Romance Novels! We'll learn how Romance covers hint at what's between them, and chat with writer Nichole Perkins about how the genre is diversifying.

La Hora Mágica has been the heart of Sunset Park’s storytime programming for a decade now, highlighting songs and stories in Spanish and English for speakers of all different languages.

Dyker Heights is a destination this time of year, with houses decked out in lights drawing visitors from all around the world. And inside Dyker Library, a strong community gathers to sing, play mahjong, do yoga, and so much more. 

From “the most expensive pigeon roost in the world” to one of the world’s most unique libraries, Brooklyn’s Central Library has many stories to tell. We’ll dive into the history of Central Library, hear from Brooklynites starting small businesses, and one patron’s path from homelessness to determined author.

This Thanksgiving, meet the people who run Central Library's café and get a peak into their kitchen on the Library's third floor, where fourteen students speaking seven different language meet every day. This episode is a collaboration with Emma's Torch, a workforce development program that empowers refugees through the culinary arts and job placement services.

In honor of Veterans Day, we are bringing you four stories of service, from veterans who served in World War II, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq. Three voices come to us from interviews collected at BPL for the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.

To honor the tenth anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, we are returning to an episode we produced in 2019 about the impact of the storm on our library system, and how libraries can become information centers, shelters and community spaces in the wake of natural disaster.