Small (Town Library) Talk
The Librarian Is In
The New York Public Library
4.7 • 595 Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2018
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Frank and Gwen chat with New York Times Features Reporter, Steven Kurutz about his recent Literary Hub essay, "In Praise of the Small Town Library." It's part coming-of-age story, part love letter to his hometown library in Renovo, Pennsylvania. Plus: book rituals, a wild non-book recommendation, and the enduring charm of an unconventional librarian.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | In all the years I went to the library, I never had one conversation with Viv about books. |
| 0:11.0 | Hi, everyone. Welcome to the library and is in the New York Public Libraries podcast about books, culture, and what to read next. |
| 0:17.5 | I'm Gwen. I'm Frank. And today we are super excited to welcome Stephen Curitz, who is a New York |
| 0:21.9 | Times features reporter. And he wrote a beautiful essay for Lit Hub last month called In Praise of the |
| 0:27.1 | Small Town Library. And so we, thanks for coming. Thank you for having me. Hey. |
| 0:33.4 | So you wrote this article in praise of the Small Town Library because you came from a small |
| 0:37.1 | town. And it's about your Small Town Library that you grew up in. Right. That's right. In Pennsylvania. Yeah. So you wrote this article in praise of the small town library because you came from a small town, |
| 0:39.6 | and it's about your small town library that you grew up in. |
| 0:40.6 | Right, that's right. In Pennsylvania. |
| 0:41.5 | Yeah, the town I grew up in was maybe 1,500 people, one red light, |
| 0:48.0 | and it's not like a small town near other small towns, |
| 0:52.1 | the way you might find in the south or other places. It's a small |
| 0:56.1 | isolated town. The nearest town in any direction is 30 miles. So it was a very kind of hermetically |
| 1:03.6 | sealed community and a unique way to grow up. The town is called Renovo. So it's the Renovo Public |
| 1:10.7 | Library. |
| 1:12.3 | My absolute favorite part, in addition to you talking about the actual shelves, |
| 1:15.8 | is the part about the librarian. Yes, of course. Viv. I wonder if you could read a |
| 1:19.9 | little bit of that so that if people listening. With smoke? Right. She had a cigarette in her drawer. |
| 1:25.8 | That's right. She had cigarettes in her drawer. This is like early, we're talking early 90s. |
| 1:29.9 | Yes. That's right. Late 80s, early 90s, right. I left there in 94 to go to college. |
| 1:36.0 | Right. |
| 1:37.0 | So I'll just read, and Viv comes back a few times, but I'll just read where she's introduced. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New York Public Library, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The New York Public Library and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.