Librarians on the Radio
November 8, 2019
We chatted with Darby Love, one of the Librarians who is responsible for Librarians on the Radio, to find out a little more about the show and what’s coming up!
Q-If I tuned into an episode or listened to a podcast of LOTR today, what would I expect to hear?
A-You could hear anything from a teen reading a story they read, to a local musician playing for us, to a good old fashioned talk about a book. Librarians tend to be omnivores and I think that’s reflected in the show.
Q-Who are some of the guests you have lined up for the future?
A-We really roll with what comes at us on the show these days. There are so many great stories and people that touch us in our every day lives at home and at work and we’ve been exploring those quite a bit. But on the more flashy side, Nanaimo North branch has Ivan Coyote coming at some undecided point in January and I will definitely do an interview with them or at the very least record, some of their storytelling live. Our Harbourfront branch is working towards bringing in some bigger name authors, so we will definitely be trying to interview any of those people too.
Q-What is your goal with the show? Who are you reaching out to?
A-The frustrating but kind of magical thing about radio is that you have no clue who is listening. We know that people who listen to us on CHLY 101.7 FM are fans of local and alternative radio programming and we also know that people who find the podcast on our website are already library users. At this point, we have been trying to have a bit of something for everyone. People who like libraries are by and large curious about the world so I hope we are satisfying some of that curiosity with our guests or exploring a library topic like Freedom to Read month.
Q-Do you want to share a contact email/number if people have ideas or possible guest suggestions?
A-Yes, please! Email us at librariansontheradio@virl.bc.ca or you can call me (Darby Love) at the Nanaimo North branch at 250-933-2665 if you don’t care for email.
Q-Any funny stories/experiences you’d like to share that our readers might enjoy?
A-We had Tundra the wolf and her handler Gary Allan on the show one time. While Tundra was not on the radio per se, she was definitely in the studio. The studio is rather small and cozy, Tundra is a very large wolf and she was shedding very large chunks of fur everywhere. Wolves are not dogs, so I was being very good and not initiating petting her as that felt like the responsible thing to do. But I have this compulsion to pull out dog hair floofs… It was so hard. I always pull out dog hair floofs on my own dogs. I gave in and pulled just a few after she came up and asked me to pet her. After Tundra left the studio and my fellow cohosts looked like we’d been sprayed in fluffy wolf hair. It was just marvelous!
Did you know all of our shows are saved as a podcast so you can go back and listen to every single one?
There are some pretty amazing guests from over the last few years.
Don’t forget if you know anyone who would make a great guest or if you have a story you’d like to share…we’d love to hear from you!
