Storytelling – an ancient, community-building, revered, and always-relevant “technology” – is a powerful connector. Stories can bring people together. Stories resonate with everyone and we can use them to better understand our communities and ourselves. This interactive session introduces three unique ways to extend and enhance the power of stories in your institution. We will explore how to gather and utilize our community’s stories via narrative inquiry, how to provide inclusive and welcoming programs built around storytelling for everyone, and how to capture and share stories via audio recording in any space afforded – no recording studio needed! This session will cover the many facets of storytelling: using our voices to tell our personal stories, work stories, and library stories, and how to use stories to promote and make our libraries accessible. At the end of the session participants will have learned how to use the results of narrative inquiry to engage with their community to better understand needs and forge solutions, how to adapt story-based programming and services to accommodate children with neuro-diverse disabilities, and how to gather stories with simple, on-the-go, recording methods to create powerful artifacts. Story-based experiences of all kinds can increase listeners’ understanding of a variety of groups, demonstrate the value of everyone’s experience, and remind listeners of their shared humanity. We will demonstrate how Libraries have the power to change lives.

Presenters: Dr. Michael Stephens, School of Information; Jason Evans Groth, NCSU Libraries; Kylie Carlson, Yarra Libraries, Australia
Date: Monday, June 3, 2019
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. (Central European Standard Time)
Location: Next Library 2019 – Aarhus, Denmark