By Andra Moss

Sometimes the most mundane exercises can lead to innovative outcomes. Take, for instance, the prosaic activity of small-town budgeting. As the board of the Falls Village David M. Hunt Library prepared to approach their town selectmen for additional funding last year, they asked residents for letters of support. The board hoped that a few notes of appreciation for programs or for the library’s responsiveness during the pandemic would help boost their case. 

When a whopping 75 letters flooded in, “iIt got me thinking,” said Sally Wilburn, wife of a Falls Village selectman and underwriting manager at local radio station Robin Hood Radio, “that libraries really are the heart and soul of our communities. Maybe everyone needs to know what the libraries are doing.” 

The enthused Wilburn floated an idea for a libraries-based podcast (her first foray into any kind of programming) past Meg Sher, executive director at the Hunt library, and then on to her colleagues at the radio station. Robin Hood Radio, (WHDD–FM 91.9 FM), based in Sharon, reaches 250,000 households across a total of six counties in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts with an eclectic array of live and recorded programming. 

“They were actually excited,” Wilburn recalls. She quickly enlisted eight librarians from across the Northwest Corner, and Robin Hood Radio’s “Between the Stacks” podcast was launched in June 2024. 

The program, which streams on-demand every Friday, pairs librarians from Norfolk, Falls Village, Kent, Cornwall and Sharon in Connecticut and Millbrook, Millerton and Hillsdale in New York for an hour-long conversation focusing on a different topic each month. Says Wilburn, “The beauty of having eight different libraries is that you have a different point of view every week.”

Leslie Battis, assistant director of the Norfolk Library, describes the conversations with her assigned partner, Sher, as “a remarkable opportunity” to explore a wide range of subjects. 

Their discussions have explored summer programs for children, the surging popularity of book groups and the draw of unusual exhibits, such as Linda Filley’s fanciful paper shoe creations, shown at the Norfolk Library last spring. 

The podcast, says Battis, “started as a way to support the libraries in the area …. to show our active role as an anchor and a connection point in the community.” Even so, Battis feels that the episodes offer something for every kind of listener—from updates on that month’s most popular books to the challenges of funding libraries, to a thought-provoking deep dive into book bans.

The librarians also use the show for inspiration. The Norfolk Library, which hosts a popular online book group led by former professor Mark Scarbrough, has decided, after listening to the experiences of some other libraries, to also try an in-person, “more grassroots” group, as Battis describes it. The First Monday Book Club will have its inaugural gathering in the library’s Great Hall on Feb. 3, to read “The Spy Coast” by Tess Gerritsen. 

The group’s chats about the origin stories of their libraries haves also provided interesting insights. Norfolk’s historic library, for instance, was gifted to the town in 1889 by Isabella Eldridge as a space as much for the community as for the written word. Battis says she was delighted to learn from Sher that the 1891 Hunt library, also founded by women (David Hunt’s two sisters), was similarly directed from its inception to place the needs of youth and “the intelligence and welfare” of the community at its core.

Nearly 125 years later, Battis confirms that the intentions, and spirit, of those prescient women live on within the walls of their libraries. “Someone once told me,” she says, “that our library is ‘the living room of the town’ and that’s so true. Everyone loves the library.”

New and previous episodes of the “Between the Stacks” podcast are available at www.robinhoodradioondemand.com.