Jelani Cobb, awards judge, associate professor of history and the director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut, staff writer for The New Yorker, and the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress (Walker Books, 2010) and Stacy Schiff, awards judge, Pulitzer Prize-winner, biographer of Vera Nabokov, Cleopatra among others and the author of The Witches: Salem, 1692 (Little, Brown and Company, 2015) join us with some of the 10 finalists:
- Danita Nichols: branch manager at Inwood Library
- Nicole Gordon: community library manager at Arverne Library in Queens
- Roxana Benavides: librarian at the Sunset Park branch of Brooklyn Public Library
@BrianLehrer @jelani9 @QueensLibrary I got my first library card at the Teaneck Public Library in Teaneck, NJ!
— Nice♿️White✊Lady (@Nice_White_Lady) April 12, 2016
@BrianLehrer Davis, California in 1992, a new immigrant from Nigeria, library was refuge from the horrors of junior high. #firstlibrarycard
— Busayo Olupona (@busayonyc) April 12, 2016
@BrianLehrer NYPL on the UWS. I was maybe 5 or 6 ('92/'93), signed in big print letters that didn't fit, and I still have it!
— Amory Meltzer (@Amorymeltzer) April 12, 2016
@BrianLehrer Clason's Point branch Bronx. 6 years old. As many books as I wanted, IN MY OWN NAME! Remember walking home arms full
— Jaybee (@blackzelig) April 12, 2016
@BrianLehrer 5 years old. New Dorp branch of @nypl library. I felt like Indiana Jones. I now build makerspaces in school libraries.
— Chris O'Brien (@chrisobrienisok) April 12, 2016