Book Syrup

A few years ago, I took a class on video editing. At the time, I was in charge of social media for a locally owned business, and videos were becoming the thing. We learned how to storyboard, how to keep photographs from feeling static, and how to sync sound with image. Most of all, we learned how to present a story. The final project needed to be five minutes and contain a certain number of specific things to show how much we had learned over the semester. I wrote a few fictional pieces, but my grandma’s stories, filled with no-nonsense hope and perseverance, kept returning to me as I tried to develop my project. When I showed “Everyone Calls Me Tommie” to the class—a masterwork by no means but motivated by love—it inspired those who still could to interview the elders in their lives. We are, after all, made up of stories as much as we are flesh and blood.

While my five-minute film was posted on YouTube, there were some similarities to Ray’s (2019) description of the Human Library. My grandma’s experience as a migrant farmworker fleeing Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl had been used to discriminate against her. She was an Okie. For a time, she was homeless, a young girl living with her family in the river bottoms. The minute people got to hear her story, she became human to them, deserving of compassion. Like mentioned by Ray (2019), her tale being told allowed her to be “unjudged.”

Libraries have a special relationship with their towns. They are not only bastions of knowledge, they are community hubs, allowing all types of people to feel welcomed and safe. As Stephens stated so concisely, “every voice should be heard. Every story told” (Paxaman, 2019). Libraries have the privilege of being an environment that can be used to connect people, share stories, and help them create. Our public library has hosted Community Conversations for many years, striving to bridge the widening gap between people on different ends of the political spectrum or those who feel threatened by how the county is changing with new populations moving from the Bay Area and Southern California. Community Conversations has allowed people to hear each other’s stories and to recognize that we are all more alike than we are different.

My grandma passed away this January at the age of 94, her strong, loving heart growing weary at last. I miss her every day, but I am comforted by the memory of a project completed before I learned about the importance of libraries as the stewards of stories. For those five minutes of video, there are hours of interviews, containing the tales of a life well-lived. They now belong in my personal library, waiting for family and friends to view and enjoy, and perhaps to someday be a part of a longer film personalizing the struggles and triumphs of one woman who survived the Dust Bowl and beyond. As a librarian it is my responsibility, after all, to not only keep stories but to share and make them as well (Stephens, 2019).

References

Paxaman, M. (2019, September 3). Challenged but not dying, the public libraries are more relevant than ever. Jutland Station. http://www.jutlandstation.dk/challenged-but-not-dying-the-public-libraries-are-more-relevant-than-ever/?fbclid=IwAR1g1o4r9XqHTuu8IuGOIWQcGW_EC40ID99C4OYkDxF3xuMiDoWhnpG8Spw

Ray, M. (2019, April 12). Courageous conversations at the human library. Next Avenue. https://www.nextavenue.org/courageous-conversations-human-library/

Stephens, M. (2019). Whole-hearted librarianship: Finding hope, inspiration, and balance. American Library Association.