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Borrowed & Returned — Arts
Borrowed & Returned

Brooklyn Public Library is full of stories. Borrowed brings the best of them to you.

Current podcast series:

Borrowed & Returned is a new podcast series that examines what our reading public borrowed in the past, and what we’re all reading now. In conversations with library workers, authors and readers across the country, we’ll return to the books that changed us, and changed America, too.

Previous podcast series:

Borrowed and Banned is BPL’s Peabody-nominated series about America’s ideological war with its bookshelves. From September to December 2023, we released ten episodes featuring the stories from students, librarians, and teachers on the frontlines of intellectual freedom, and writers whose books have become political battleground. This series also won a Webby Award and was nominated for an Ambie Award.

BPL’s Anthem Award-winning podcast is a narrative show about superhero librarians, neighborhood stories, and what it means to be a free, democratic place in today’s changing world. We’ve told stories about libraries during natural disasters, the challenges of homelessness, and NYC’s fraught relationship with trash.

For transcripts, pictures, book lists, and resources, please visit our web page: bklynlib.org/podcasts

The views, thoughts, and opinions of the guests do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of Brooklyn Public Library.

Copyright: © 2025 Borrowed & Returned

Latest Episodes:

On Passing Nov 18, 2020

Show notes

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 about the phenomenon of passing in her novels. We're telling the stories of these women and asking what they can tell us about race in librarianship and in literature.

Read the transcript and check out our book list here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/passing

Votes for Women Oct 30, 2020

Show notes

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's Black women suffragists. We also talk with NYC Council Member Farrah Louis about how the women in her family encouraged activism through voting. Read the trasncript here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/votes-for-women

From Montgomery to East New York Oct 26, 2020

Show notes

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 legacy.

Read the transcript and check out our book list here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/montgomery-east-new-york

Marching Onward Oct 14, 2020

Show notes

From Selma, Alabama to Brooklyn, New York — we look at how racial violence and racial memory impacts our country and our libraries. Read the transcript and check out our book list here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/marching-onward

Reopening, Reimagining Sep 30, 2020

Show notes

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 talk to LA County Library about how extreme weather is impacting their reopening, and dig into the science of how we are keeping you (and your books) healthy.

Read the transcript and check out our book list here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/reopening-reimagining

Your Friendly Neighborhood Fridge Aug 07, 2020

Show notes

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. We found one! Listen to an audio portrait of the food justice movement happening on street corners across Brooklyn. And we'll be back in your feed again in September for Season 3 of Borrowed.

Read the transcript here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/your-friendly

Rebroadcast: Free Brooklyn Jun 25, 2020

Show notes

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 States had been abolished, we are returning to an episode from earlier in our season. "Free Brooklyn" tells two important stories about the struggle for freedom: a young girl “auctioned” at Plymouth Church in 1860 and the story of Weeksville, Brooklyn's historically Black neighborhood.

Read the transcript and check out our book list here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/rebroadcast-free-brooklyn

Stories from the Pandemic Jun 03, 2020

Show notes

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 encountering a new normal, as we adjust to changing work, education, housing, and even access to basic amenities. Listen to stories from people across the borough as part of our ongoing local oral history archive.

Read the transcript and check out our book list here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/stories-pandemic

A Folklorist for the Seven Million May 13, 2020

Show notes

In 1943, Brooklyn Public Library launched its first radio program, in partnership with WNYC. “Folk Songs for the Seven Million,” written and produced by Elaine Lambert Lewis, documented folk songs and stories from around the country and collected folk traditions from everyday Brooklynites. On this episode, we pay tribute to our audio ancestor.

Read the transcript and check out our book list here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/folklorist-for-seven

In Fifty Years Apr 22, 2020

Show notes

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 Brooklyn, and we look back at the first Earth Day fifty years ago, and ask what it means for us today.

Read the transcript and check out our book list here: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/fifty-years

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