The StoryCorps MobileBooth visited the Richmond Public Main Library, located on 101 E. Franklin St., Richmond, Virginia, in the fall of 2007. Stories from around Virginia were recorded, which will be added to the ongoing national project.
StoryCorps is a nationwide project to instruct and inspire Americans to record one another’s stories in sound. The project is a collaboration between Sound Portraits Productions, the Library of Congress, and public radio stations nationwide.
StoryCorps’ Vision
StoryCorps is modeled —in spirit and in scope—after the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s, through which oral-history interviews with everyday Americans across the country were recorded. These recordings remain the single most important collection of American voices gathered to date. We hope that StoryCorps will build and expand on that work, becoming a WPA for the 21st Century.
StoryCorps celebrates our shared humanity and collective identity. It captures and defines the stories that bond us. We’ve found that the process of interviewing a friend, neighbor, or family member can have a profound impact on both the interviewer and interviewee. We’ve seen people change, friendships grow, families walk away feeling closer, understanding each other better. Listening, after all, is an act of love.
Fast facts about StoryCorps:
- The project is called StoryCorps (pronounced “story core”).
- StoryCorps’ goal is to help people record interviews with their friends and family.
- StoryCorps has built a series of small recording studios, called StoryBooths, in public spaces across the country. Some StoryBooths are built on trailers and travel from town to town.
- The newest StoryBooth, in Lower Manhattan, opened on July 12, 2005. The flagship StoryBooth opened on October 23, 2003, in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal.
- The two traveling MobileBooths embarked on their cross-country journeys on May 19, 2005.
- At a StoryBooth, people can make a broadcast-quality recording of interviews with friends and families. A trained facilitator guides the interview, if necessary, and handles all the technical aspects of the recording.
- StoryCorps participants receive a copy of their interview on CD at the end of their session.
- The suggested donation for an hour-long StoryBooth session is $10.
- Each StoryBooth will be affiliated with a local public radio station (WCVE Public Radio). Excerpts of the best material recorded in each StoryBooth will, with permission of the participants, be broadcast on the partner public radio station. Some will also be broadcast nationally on NPR’s Morning Edition or All Things Considered.
- Interviews recorded at StoryBooths are added to the StoryCorps Archive, housed at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. It is the hope that the StoryCorps Archive will become an oral history of America.
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