Voices of the People: The StoryCorps Archive; Library Journal, October 12, 2023

 Elisa Shoenberger , Library Journal; Voices of the People: The StoryCorps Archive 

"Since founder and president David Isay conceived of StoryCorps in 2003, the organization has recorded over 356,000 interviews with over 640,000 people in all 50 states, in over 50 languages, with the archive housed at the American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress.

Over the past 20 years, the organization has worked tirelessly to collect and honor the oral histories of its participants while finding new ways of sharing their contributions to the world, including National Public Radio (NPR) broadcasts, animations, podcasts, and five bestselling books. According to StoryCorps’s most recent Annual Report, in 2021, the broadcasts featured on NPR Morning Edition reached 12 million listeners each week.

“We have a scale of recordings, stories, and first person accounts of historical events that is really unmatched,” said Virginia Millington, StoryCorps director of recording and archives. The archive contains stories recalling pivotal historical events that include World War II, the rise of Hip Hop, and 9/11, as well as personal stories of happiness and heartbreak.

In order to make sure that the diversity of experiences are represented, StoryCorps has developed several initiatives over the years to target particular parts of US society. For instance, there is the Military Voices Initiative, to collect interviews from veterans, military families, service members; another initiative works to honor the stories of LGBTQ+ in initiative StoryCorps OutLoud; while StoryCorps Griot collects the experiences of African Americans.

Other programs focus on Latinos, people working in the end of life care facilities (hospitals, palliative care), juvenile and adult justice system, refugees, immigrants and Muslim communities to name a few."

N.C. radio station reverses decision to withhold broadcast of contemporary Met operas; NPR, October 5, 2023

Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR ; N.C. radio station reverses decision to withhold broadcast of contemporary Met operas

"This story was updated on Thursday, Oct. 5 at 8:25 p.m. ET.

On Thursday afternoon, a listener-supported station in North Carolina, WCPE, reversed its decision to withhold the broadcast of six contemporary operas this season from the Metropolitan Opera saying, "After careful deliberation, due consideration, and hearing from our supporters, listeners and the public, The Classical Station has decided to broadcast the entire 2023-2024 season of the New York Metropolitan Opera." 

The reversal came after public outcry from notable figures including Pulitzer Prize-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens and author and journalist Celeste Headlee. 

WCPE's protest came at a time when the Metropolitan Opera is eager to showcase its commitment to recently written operas and works from outside the traditional canon of music written by white men. Three of the operas that WCPE planned to reject in the 2023-24 season were written by Black or Mexican composers. This past April, WCPE also refused to broadcast another Met-produced opera written by a Black composer that included LGBTQ themes."

Unpublished Letter Sent to New York Times Editor on 10/2/23 re “The Enemies of Literature Are Winning” by Matthew Walther (Oct. 1, 2023)

[Kip Currier: Unpublished Letter I sent to New York Times Editor on 10/2/23 re “The Enemies of Literature Are Winning” by Matthew Walther (Oct. 1, 2023).]

Nowhere in the author’s jeremiad does he address the two most important reasons for the continuing existence and relevance of Banned Books Week: providing readers with access to the broadest spectrum of information and including the voices of all, particularly BIPOC and LGBTQ+ persons who have historically been absent from library collections. In the words of the late Banned Books Week co-founder and longtime intellectual freedom champion Judith Krug, “We have to serve the information needs of everybody.” Not some, but everyone.

Nature addresses helicopter research and ethics dumping; Nature, June 2, 2022

Nature; Nature addresses helicopter research and ethics dumping

"Exploitative research practices, sadly, come in all shapes and sizes. ‘Helicopter research’ occurs when researchers from high-income settings, or who are otherwise privileged, conduct studies in lower-income settings or with groups who are historically marginalized, with little or no involvement from those communities or local researchers in the con- ceptualization, design, conduct or publication of the research. ‘Ethics dumping’ occurs when similarly privileged researchers export unethical or unpalatable experiments and studies to lower-income or less-privileged settings with different ethical standards or less oversight."