FYI: The Public Libraries Podcast

In this podcast, we discuss Graphic Medicine, which can be defined as the use of comics (graphic narratives) in health sciences education and patient care. Our guests are Susan Squier and Ellen Forney. Susan Squier is Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at Penn State University, where she taught graphic narratives (comics!) to graduate students. She is now Visiting Fellow at the Freie Universität, Berlin (the Free University, that is) where she is part of a collaboration called the PathoGraphics project, a study of the relations between illness narratives (also called pathographies) and comics about medicine, illness, disability and caregiving. She is a co-editor of the Graphic Medicine book series at Penn State Press, which publishes long form graphic narratives, graphic narratives for classroom use, and scholarly studies of works of graphic medicine. Ellen Forney is the author of the New York Times bestseller "Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me," a graphic memoir about her bipolar disorder. Her new book, the follow-up to Marbles, is a self-help guide to maintaining stability with a mood disorder. It’s called "Rock Steady: Brilliant Advice from My Bipolar Life," and will be out this May. She teaches comics at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.

We talk with Nicholas Higgins, director of Outreach Services at the Brooklyn (NY) Public Library. Higgins, author of the latest book in the PLA Quick Reads series, shares wisdom gleaned from his years of experience providing library service to incarcerated persons; provides a thoughtful perspective on the American criminal justice system and shows how to provide the absolute best service to this group and the families they have left behind.

Librarian Kyra Hahn shares her experiences navigating the intense bureaucracy of the Federal Public Service Student Loan (PSLF) program and provides tips, advice, and explanations that can make the process easier for applicants.

PLA's Brendan Dowling Talks with Eric Motley, Executive Vice President, The Aspen Institute about his new book, "Madison Park: A Place of Hope." Motley shares stories from his childhood and about the place he was raised, an African-American community established by freed slaves, and elaborates on how those experiences shaped his journey all the way to the Bush White House.

In this episode we discuss providing the best library service for your LGBTQ community with our guest Joel A. Nichols. Joel is the author of the winner in this year's "Public Libraries" magazine feature article contest, for the article "Serving All Families in a Queer and Genderqueer Way," which you can read at www.publiclibrariesonline.org.

He is an administrator for data strategy and evaluation in the Strategic Initiatives Department at the Free Library of Philadelphia, where he previously worked as a children's librarian and branch manager and the author of "Teaching Internet Basics - The Can-Do Guide" and "I-Pads in the Library" both published by Libraries Unlimited.

We talk to Megan Sullivan, writer and college professor (Boston University) about her book, "Clarissa's Disappointment: And Resources for Families, Teachers and Counselors of Children of Incarcerated Parents" about how to best serve this group, the author's own experience with parental incarceration, and more.

We talk with Gillian Robbins and Caitlin Seifritz librarians in the Business Resource & Innovation Center (BRIC) at the Free Library of Philadelphia about the BRIC and new ideas for updating the library model of providing services to business, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits.

PL Online Assistant Editor Brendan Dowling talks with author Michael Callahan, author of 2015’s “Searching for Grace Kelly.” Michael is also a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a former deputy editor at Town and Country and Marie Claire. His new book, “The Night She Became Miss America” was released in April, 2017.

PL's Brendan Dowling talks with author Yoojin Grace Wuertz about her recently released novel "Everything Belongs to Us."

PLA's Project Outcome (PO) is a free online toolkit consisting of surveys, a survey portal, and an interactive data dashboard that helps librarians measure the outcomes of their programs and services. Join us as we discuss this project with Emily Plagman, PO's Project Manager and Samantha Lopez, Project Coordinator.