Participatory Session: Secrets of the Library: Spooky Books, Urban Legends, and Unquiet Ghosts
Sponsored by Zoe Abrams Rare Books
Ghost stories are the medium of the marginalized, a place where characters, authors, and readers explore the forbidden and the unspoken. This session will discuss the ways in which all libraries, bookshops, and books are haunted—by their collectors and caretakers of the past and by the stories that are told about their potential secrets. Much of the session will be devoted to hearing your ghost stories, urban legends, and myths about the “secrets” your library, archive, bookshop, or books are said to contain. We hope for a mixture of a good old-fashioned around-the-campfire spook story session and a serious discussion of how we can potentially use the stories that are told about our libraries and books to engage our patrons, clients, and fans in meaningful ways, drawing those who hunger to be haunted into deeper research or more profound interactions with the items in our collections