Borrowed & Returned

This Guy Sucked: D W Griffith with Kellie Carter Jackson

03 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today we’re bringing you a really interesting episode from our friends at This Guy Sucked, a podcast hosted by historian and writer Claire Aubin abo...

Thresholds: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on the Future That’s Still Possible

21 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, climate scientist and activist. Recently, she sat down with Jordan Kisner, of the Thresholds podcas...

We are the Environment: Silent Spring’s Enduring Wisdom

14 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Silent Spring came out in 1962, it was an instant best-seller and led to the establishment of the EPA, as well as the ban of harmful pesticides s...

Molly Crabapple on Making Art in a Turbulent World

07 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer who documents the extremes, from nightclubs to war zones. She’s also the author of several books, including ...

Art Spiegelman on Resistance, Memory, and Speaking Up

30 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Art Spiegelman is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the graphic novel Maus, the story of his parents’ experience during the Holocaust. We got to ...

Maus and the Power of Images

23 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Art Spiegelman’s Maus almost single-handedly elevated comics from throw-away inserts in newspapers to a serious literary art worthy of winning the h...

Book Riot: The Untold Story of Black Librarians

09 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode comes to us from our friends at Book Riot! In this segment, you'll hear Book Riot’s Erica Ezeifedi speak with Rodney Freeman, a li...

Matt de la Peña on Small Stories and the Power of Perspective

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Matt de la Peña is the Newbery Medal-winning author of seven Young Adult novels and five picture books. We talked with him about writing small storie...

Meg Medina on Latine Stories and Reading as a Family

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Meg Medina is an award-winning author of books for kids and young adults, and she was the 2023-2024 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literatur...

How The Snowy Day Changed Children’s Books

19 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Snowy Day wasn’t the first picture book to feature a Black child as its beloved protagonist, but it might be the most visible. When it came out ...

The Legacy of Howard Zinn's Radical History

04 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

When Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States came out in 1980, it literally rocked the boat. Instead of starting where most historie...

Reginald Dwayne Betts on Freedom and Poetic Constraint

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet, a lawyer, and the founder and CEO of Freedom Reads, an organization with the goal of bringing a library to every cell...

On Reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X in Prison

22 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There are so many reasons to read – and reread – The Autobiography of Malcolm X. But for this episode, we’re revisiting the book with the perspe...

N.K. Jemisin on Truth, Education, and Speculation

15 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

N.K. Jemisin is a New York Times-bestselling science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s a Brooklynite, the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fell...

What Parable of the Sower Taught Us About the Future

08 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In these unfathomable moments, when the world seems to be falling apart—we often turn to stories for guidance. For the folks in Southern California ...

Introducing: Borrowed and Returned

24 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Borrowed and Returned is a new podcast series that examines what our reading public borrowed in the past, and what we’re all reading now. In convers...

Tracing the Legacy of Slavery in Brooklyn

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A new exhibit at BPL's Center for Brooklyn History explores the history and legacy of slavery here in Brooklyn. The team at CBH gathered document...

A New Year’s Plunge (Rebroadcast)

30 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 reco...

Why We Still Read Together: The Joy of Book Clubs

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 e...

Book Sanctuaries, Buttons and Bouncy Houses

15 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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,...

Banned Books Week: All for a Library Card

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 Amer...

Rebroadcast: Blocks and Brownstones

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Bedford-Stuyvesant is perhaps one of Brooklyn’s most iconic neighborhoods. Its tree-lined streets and grand brownstones have been here for over 150 ...

Bed-Stuy Tea: An Interview with Cookbook Author Nicole A. Taylor

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 wit...

Explore Your City This Summer!

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Drag Story Hour

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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. ...

Say His Name: Arthur Miller

17 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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...

When the Library's a Stage

01 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 a...

Rebroadcast: Secret Lives of Librarians

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 planni...

Bridging the Gap

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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 genera...

Browse the Branches

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Brooklyn has 62 neighborhood libraries, each with a distinct architecture, culture, and soul. To kick off the new season and to celebrate our audio st...

The Challenge

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Student activists in York, Pennsylvania organized a silent protest when hundreds of books were banned from their classrooms, paving the way for lastin...

On the Frontlines

07 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Library workers often risk their livelihoods when they speak out against censorship, spurring community members to pick up the fight for intellectual ...

An Interview with Maia Kobabe

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Maia Kobabe's debut memoir, Gender Queer, was the most frequently banned book in 2021 and 2022. We talked with em about what it's like to be...

Beloved Blues

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite being one of the most frequently banned authors, Toni Morrison’s work has inspired countless others to tell stories outside the mainstream. ...

An Interview with George M. Johnson

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 ...

Battle of the Classics

09 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Our call to action for this episode:Talk about the books that are important to you, even if they aren’t challenged.Stay informed about what books ar...

An Interview with Mike Curato

02 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Mike Curato talks about his award-winning graphic novel Flamer, his writing practice, and how it feels to have his story vaulted into national headlin...

Of Parents and School Boards

26 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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. W...

This Day in Esoteric Political History: United States vs One Book Called Ulysses (1933)

19 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s an off-week for Borrowed and Banned, but we do have something special to share. We’re doing a collaboration with PRX’s Radiotopia, and th...

Seen and Obscene

12 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The birth of obscenity laws in the 1870s provides a cautionary tale for the present moment, when far-right conservatives incorrectly label books “se...

All for a Library Card

28 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Introducing: Borrowed and Banned

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last year, over 2,500 unique titles were challenged in libraries across the country. That’s the highest number in over 20 years. On Borrowed and Ban...

An Episode from Grown: Culture and Identity

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We’re doing something a little bit different today and sharing an episode from a totally different podcast we love … it’s called Grown, and it’...

Jay-Z at the Library

01 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 Brooklynite...

Pathways to Leadership

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Kesha Powell and Amen Emile have been working at BPL for over 20 years in various roles, from public safety to circulation manager. Thanks to BPL&apos...

Meet Our (Almost) Six-Year-Old Librarian

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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.  Read the ...

The Teens are Offline

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 so...

Seeking Asylum

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

Buscando Asilo

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Este episodio es sobre los solicitantes de asilo en la ciudad de Nueva York. Estamos compartiendo estas narrativas personales con la esperanza de que...

A Place of Refuge

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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...

What's Your Library Worth?

30 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 yo...

Go, Robots, Go!

02 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

With tablets, Legos, and coding, these fourteen teams from library branches across Brooklyn met at Central Library to compete in the final championshi...

Happily Ever After

14 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 cove...

La Hora Mágica

01 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

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 fo...

Dyker Singers, Dyker Lights

20 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dyker Heights, Brooklyn is a destination this time of year, with houses decked out in lights drawing visitors from all around the world. And inside Dy...

Rebroadcast: Work in Progress

07 Dec 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 t...

Family Meal

22 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 fou...

Stories of Service

11 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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. ...

Rebroadcast: Weathering the Storm

28 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

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 sy...

School's Out! Time for a Pop Quiz

24 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Will you visit your library this summer? To kick off a season of reading, we thought we'd have some fun! How many Brooklyn and library trivia que...

Books Unbanned

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Book bans and challenges have been on the rise in the past few years. When BPL launched a free eCard to give out-of-state teens access to our eBook co...

A Library Sounds Like This

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From defunct recording technology to vinyl’s comeback, we've been through a lot of media changes over the last 125 years. And we're still...

World Wide Web

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1996, we were one of the first libraries in the nation to connect our patrons to the internet. Today, we're extending our WiFi reach down the ...

Decolonizing Dewey

24 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A lot had changed since Melvil Dewey came up with a classification system to organize all known and not-yet-known knowledge into a string of numbers a...

New Libraries, Old Places

28 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Libraries weren't always located in their own stately buildings. Many of our branches used to operate out of pharmacies, laundry rooms, storefron...

Goodbye to All Fines

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On October 5th, 2021, all three public library systems in New York City eliminated late fines. The change was 125 years in the making, and it made us...

Happy Birthday, BPL!

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this season of Borrowed, we’ll take a look at what the library was like 125 years ago, the radical ideas that founded public libraries across t...

Building Brooklyn: We've Been Here Before

27 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The story of Canarsie in reverse, from the racial unrest in the 1990s, to the anti-integration school boycotts in the 1960s, the community of Canarsi...

Building Brooklyn: Finntown

20 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1900s, if you walked around Sunset Park, you might have heard Finnish being spoken on the streets. That's because the neighborhood w...

Building Brooklyn: Eighth Avenue

13 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Brooklyn is constantly changing. This episode takes a look at the changes on just one street in one neighborhood: Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park, which...

Building Brooklyn: Women on the Waterfront

06 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

At the start of World War II, 200 women were employed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. That number ballooned to 7,000 at the height of the war, but afterwar...

Building Brooklyn: Like Coming Home

29 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the middle of the 20th century, a ten square block area in North Gowanus was home to the largest Mohawk settlement outside of Canada. We hear abou...

Building Brooklyn: From Gowanus to Canarsie

31 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We're launching a mini-series about four neighborhoods that made Brooklyn the vibrant, diverse borough it is today! “Building Brooklyn” will ...

New Yorkers: Rank Your Vote!

27 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It’s the start of summer, which means block parties, beach trips, and also, big primary elections here in New York City. This will be the city&apos...

That All May Participate

07 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

"To me, what all these books say is independence and personal choice," says Nefertiti Matos of the stacks of Braille books at NYPL's An...

Good News

24 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been a rough year. So, we gathered all the good news we could find to brighten your podcast feed. Hear kids read to a therapy dog, a library l...

Education For All

12 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ingrid Douglas never finished high school as a teenager. When she started looking for a better job at age sixty, she found not having a degree was a ...

Rekindling from Burnout

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Burnout from work is something a lot of us are thinking about right now. It's been on the minds of librarians, too. We talk to a group of librar...

Hear Me Out: Part Two

10 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Hear me out: A Vietnamese refugee opens a restaurant to keep her kids out of gangs, Brooklynites on their changing borough, a daughter seeks justice a...

Hear Me Out: Part One

03 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Hear me out: a Bed-Stuy kid grapples with her Brooklyn identity, a Chassidic woman follows her faith to from South Africa to Crown Heights, musicians ...

Showing Up

20 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our work in the correctional facilities in New York City didn't stop during the pandemic. We talked with the Justice Initiatives team at BPL to ...

Secret Lives of Librarians

06 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What do librarians do all day? When they're not planning programs or working the reference desk, these librarians are also obscure trivia player...

Storytime Anytime

21 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"We want all the kids to see themselves in all the stories," says Raakhee Mirchandani, author of Super Satya Saves the Day. This episode,...

Missing Them

10 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A special episode, created in partnership with Queens Memory and the online newspaper The CITY, on grief and mourning during the COVID-19 pandemic, ...

On Passing

18 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Belle da Costa Greene and Nella Larsen are two librarians of color, one who is white passing, and the other of mixed heritage who wrote famously ab...

Votes for Women

30 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

To honor the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, we take a trip to Green-Wood cemetery to the grave of Sarah Smith Garnet, one of Brooklyn'...

From Montgomery to East New York

26 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We dig into the history of a once-unacknowledged African burial ground in East New York, Brooklyn, and ask how a new library branch can honor that leg...

Marching Onward

14 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

From Selma, Alabama to Brooklyn, New York — we look at how racial violence and racial memory impacts our country and our libraries.    Read the t...

Reopening, Reimagining

30 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

You can physically borrow books again, Brooklyn! This episode, we ask how the pandemic can help us re-imagine what we use libraries for. Plus, we ta...

Your Friendly Neighborhood Fridge

07 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Since our libraries were closed for the last four months, we were on the lookout for organizations that were acting in the spirit of public libraries....

Rebroadcast: Free Brooklyn

25 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In honor of Juneteenth 2020, the anniversary of the day in 1865 when the news was finally delivered to Galveston, Texas that slavery in the United Sta...

Stories from the Pandemic

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In an unprecedented time of stress and resilience, many Brooklynites are at the front lines of responding to the coronavirus crisis, and many more are...

A Folklorist for the Seven Million

13 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 1943, Brooklyn Public Library launched its first radio program, in partnership with WNYC. “Folk Songs for the Seven Million,” written and produ...

In Fifty Years

22 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 Earth Day is here, but a lot of us are inside. On this episode of Borrowed, we gather sounds of the natural world from the stoops and parks of Brook...

Get Counted

01 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The census doesn’t just distribute representatives in congress and billions of dollars in federal funds—it determines city bus routes, how many ga...

Social Distancing? We're Here For You!

17 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

 Working from home? Kids at home? The library is here for you! We’ve got virtual resources galore to help you keep a healthy social distance during...

Three Brooklyn Stories

03 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to three Brooklynites talk about their personal connections to places across the borough. We’ll hear from a Walt Whitman scholar at the base...

Stroller Parking

18 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re a kid or if you take care of a kid, chances are you use the library a lot. Listen in on some creative ways that libraries are engaging wi...

Borrowed, Live!

04 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For our first ever live show, we went back to the basics and talked about books! Listen to our librarians as they match audience members to books on ...

Carnegie's Legacy

23 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew Carnegie has a classic rags-to-riches story: an immigrant turned steel magnate who financed the construction of over 2,500 public library buil...