StoryCorps visits the NCSU Libraries

The NCSU Libraries has countless stories to tell. Some of those stories are now headed to the nation’s highest archive.

StoryCorps visited in January to record stories from students, faculty, administrators, alumni, and collaborators from across the country. The honor came as part of the Libraries winning the National Medal for Museum and Library Service from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) last year. Pairs and trios of people from all across the university community and beyond sat down in front of microphones and video cameras to have a conversation about the roles that libraries have played in their lives. The recordings are destined for the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and another set will live at the NCSU Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center.

Since its founding as a single recording booth in New York’s Grand Central Station in 2003, StoryCorps has collected more than 60,000 interviews from more than 100,000 participants, expanding through partnerships with National Public Radio and the Library of Congress.

The 34 participants included Chancellor Randy Woodson and his wife Susan; photographer and activist Saul Flores, a former NC State Student; former student leader and former assistant to the Chancellor for external affairs, Kevin Howell; the United States Archivist, David Ferriero; current faculty members Michael Stoskopf and Suzanne Kennedy-Stoskopf; and current students Rubia and Maria Arfeen.

Excerpts of several of the recordings are available for listening on the NCSU Libraries website as part of our Rare & Unique Digital Collections. See our detailed collection guide for a complete listing of the recordings. Complete recordings are available for on-site listening and use at the NCSU Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center.

The recordings on the Libraries’ site feature lively conversations between students and faculty about high-profile, public projects, and reminiscences between alumni and library staff about the growth of Libraries spaces and services..

Excerpts available on the Libraries site are:

• Former NC State Ph.D. student Keon Pettiway and NC State faculty member Victoria Gallagher discuss the development of the Virtual MLK Project at NC State and the Hunt Library.
• Former NC State student Saul Flores and NCSU Libraries staff member Marian Fragola talk about Flores' "Walk of the Immigrants" exhibit at the NCSU Libraries.
• NC State faculty members Holly Menninger and Robert Dunn discuss libraries as community-building spaces.
• NCSU Libraries collaborator David Silver and NCSU Libraries staff member Chris Tonelli discuss Silver's work as visiting scholar in the Hunt Library high tech spaces.
• NCSU Libraries staff member Adam Rogers and SAS's Elliot Inman, an NC State grad, discuss the role of makerspaces in the research library.

Menninger and Dunn have offices next to each other, so they’re used to talking a lot. Menninger is the Director of Public Science for the College of Sciences, and Dunn is a biologist in the Department of Applied Ecology and founder of the Rob Dunn Lab. They’re often talking about topics in the sciences, but StoryCorps offered a different opportunity.

“We changed up our usual conversation,” Menninger says. “It led us to have a conversation about the role of libraries and books throughout our lives. We started reflecting upon libraries from our childhood, what happened in those spaces, and how our relationships with libraries has evolved.”

Menninger and Dunn joked with each other about the classic StoryCorps “driveway moment,” when you sit in your parked car to hear the end of a story before turning the radio off.

“We were talking before they started recording, asking each other, ‘Are we going to try to cry?’ she laughs. “StoryCorps has stopped me before. I’ve been known to sit in my car in the garage, listening and crying.”

Menninger enjoyed the chance to sit down with Dunn and was thankful that they fell into conversation without being self-conscious about the fact that their voices would become part of a national archive. “This was part of something larger than just us. The whole idea behind collecting stories is powerful and important,” she says. “But If i had dwelled on that in the moment, I would have been a lot stiffer. Our conversation was wandering, as we tend to be. It was really a lot of fun to talk about something we wouldn’t necessarily talk about in our daily interactions.”