"The last democratic institution left standing"

Ani Boyadjian is the Principal librarian in the Research and Special Collections Department at the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL). Boyadjian manages the Central Branch’s historical archives of manuscripts, maps, and rare books, as well as their cultural and crowd-sourced collections of advertising prints, restaurant menus, family photographs, and more. She also oversees the library's oral history projects. This interview was conducted by Morgan Kriesel in the Special Collections Reading Room of the LAPL’s Central Branch on August 1st, 2026. Newsjunkie publisher Gordon Whiting was also present.

“…[recording] their story is an important way to learn about the people that we live with, and the people that we live among.”

In an interview with Zach Ellis of TheirStory, you said that the LAPL's oral history projects were started (in 1991) because the photo manager at the time thought that your photo collection, “Wasn't really representative of all the communities of Los Angeles, and didn't really tell the story” of the city. I was hoping you could clarify that a little bit.

Who has been excluded from the story of Los Angeles, and what kind of effect does that have on our understanding of its history?

You know, it wasn't a deliberate leaving people out, but at the time, the image collections were very homogeneous. And I think the photo manager, Carolyn Kozo Cole, came up with this idea to collect images from the various ethnic communities that make up Los Angeles—the Mexican community, the Armenian community, the Chinese community—that she didn't see represented in the collection. So a concerted effort was made to do that, and that was the Shades of LA project.

It was a really seminal project for the time, and a lot of wonderful images were collected—graduations, people celebrating their cultural celebrations and traditions in their homes. So it was a great way to get a snapshot of the community at the time. And as a part of that, there were 12 oral histories done, with a representative of each of those communities.

You said those communities weren't intentionally excluded from the photo archives before. What was the original collecting process like?

I think you'd find, in a lot of public libraries, that diversity of staff brings diversity of collections. I know because I started off my career at the Glendale Public Library, and the staff in most of the branches—they weren't necessarily people from ethnic backgrounds, and that reflects itself in the collections. So I think that when you have a bigger diversity in your staff, you make a concerted effort to do that. It reflects itself in its collections naturally.

I think over time, our staff, as well as other public libraries (this is not unique to Los Angeles Public Library), have diversified so that they help the collections reflect the community.

I'm curious—why oral histories? How did the way the library went about the collecting process change, and why were [oral histories] brought in at this point?

I think oral histories are interesting and accessible to people. A lot of schools and students do them as part of their projects. Interviewing somebody in your family and getting their story is an important way to learn about the people that we live with, and the people that we live among.

It's recognized as primary source material, and it's another great way to hear from the various communities of Los Angeles. I think there's been a resurgence of interest in oral histories in general. There's a whole lot more talk about them.

We'd been discussing oral histories for a while, and we'd done oral histories in pockets. But at the time [of the Shades of LA project], doing an oral history was sort of laborious. Usually it was a tape, and there were no easy ways to do transcription. It was a process. I mean, oral history is still a process—it takes a long time to do one, from prep to finish—but it's a lot easier now.

When [TheirStory’s] platform came along (it's sort of like a Zoom platform), and we discovered it was a way to easily record and transcribe oral histories, that really was a game changer for us. The automatic AI transcription and the powerful searching capabilities really made a difference.

And certainly, post-COVID, people are so much more at ease (not necessarily liking it, but at ease) being online. So it's easy to record an oral history that way. We generally do more of the podcast-style oral history. So we invite people to our Octavia Lab podcast rooms to record most of them, so that they are done in person. They love to come to the library, but it is an option for them to record it via the platform, if they can't physically be at the library.

In our oral history collection, we have three general focus areas. We have community histories, that's a very broad umbrella. We also have institutional oral histories, so, the brain trust—people retiring, or people about to retire from this institution—that can tell the story of the whole history of the library accurately, especially the fire. And then we have archival oral history: We purposely and thoughtfully record the stories of the donors of our various archives, so that they can provide context for those archives, and let the public know why they donated the archive and how they hope that the archive might be used by patrons (which I think is unique to us as an institution).

“…people come in, they see boxes, and folders, and things that are static. And then you have this oral history that says, ‘This is my story, and this is how I hope you use my archive.’”

The archival context [oral histories] are really interesting to me. How many of these have you done?

A handful. We haven't done many, so far, because we don't have a dedicated oral history program. Basically, staff are doing this on top of all of the other work that they're doing. We all wear a lot of hats. So I'm Research and Special Collections Manager, I'm also Exhibitions Liaison, and I'm also doing as many oral histories as I possibly can.

I've done a couple of them with donors of our archives. For example, we have the Brockman Gallery Archive, which we acquired a few years ago. The Brockman Gallery was a really seminal gallery in the Leimert Park area that opened in 1967 and provided a really great platform and launching point for a lot of African American artists. Really huge artists like David Hammons, and Charles White, and Betye Saar (who just recently passed away).

Dale Davis, one of the owners, was very keen on having his archive live in a public institution. He is also an educator and works with high school students. And when we were talking about him possibly giving the archive to the Los Angeles Public Library, he said that he created the gallery so that any brown kid walking past could look inside, and see this magnificent space where creative things were happening, and see a black person there. And [he said] that it was so important for this collection to be accessible. And I thought, “Wow, it would be really great for him to talk about that too.”

He's done oral histories before, so that's not unique. But the unique part is—why are you donating to the Los Angeles Public Library, and why is that significant to you, and how do you hope this collection is used? That's how the idea of doing the archival histories came about.

I also interviewed Lydia Otero for the Lydia Otero Archives. They identify as a queer and brown historian, very active in the 80s in the gay and lesbian movement in LA, and it was really exciting for us to also be able to have that archive live at LAPL. We wanted to tell Lydia's story.

It's important to us to keep doing those, moving forward. But like I said, a lot of the staff are doing it on top of all of the other work that they're doing. So it's slow going, but we're getting there.

Having a statement from the person who donated the archive—I imagine there's so many historians out there who are like, “I want that for the archive I want to study.”

Yeah, and I think it's so exciting for [the donor] to be able to give context too.

You know, people come in, they look at boxes, and folders, and things that are static. And then you have this oral history that says, “This is my story, and this is how I hope you use my archive.” It's like an extension of the archive. I think it's really exciting.

How do you guys identify people in the community that would have these really interesting and important oral histories, and how do you reach out to them?

One of the things about being a public library—we do thousands and thousands of programs and have lots of really deep ties in the community, and lots of trusted community partners that we’ve worked with for a very long time. There is no shortage of people to do oral histories about.

For example, we have affinity groups within the Los Angeles Public Library internally. I reached out to the affinity groups and asked them, “Who would you like to see interviewed?,” so that it's not just us making those decisions. Or people reach out to us and ask to be interviewed, or ask us to interview a certain person. So it's mostly that way, and I think that we have enough community partners where we can get a good representation of people in the community.

I'm curious about the way [the oral history projects are] broken up. You said it's not really a formal program, but the Your Story Is Ours initiative got funding from the Mellon Foundation in 2022—What defined that initiative?

First of all, in the absence of a lot of funding (and there were threats to funding all over IMLS), the Mellon Foundation really stepped up for libraries. So we’re super, super thankful that they did that. It's really important that they did that and continued funding a lot of these initiatives that otherwise we would not have been able to fund.

The Your Story Is Ours initiative, which we've rebranded as CommUnity, is a five-year, million-dollar grant that allows us to teach people about personal archiving in general, broad terms. It does have an oral history component as well, but it's about helping people learn how to care for their stuff. So we have a project manager and a community archivist funded through this project that are doing memory lab work in the branches. They teach people about personal archiving—how to do scanning, how to care for their things, how to describe their things.

We’ve had Tagged With Care metadata workshops, and also we've launched a whole oral history part of it. We've created oral history backpacks—there's 15 circulating backpacks with a guidebook and everything that you need to record an oral history, so that anybody can pick up one of these backpacks and record confidently at home, if they want to do that.

There's also a few other grants happening, concurrently. We have another Mellon-funded grant that we're partners on, called the MARKINGS grant, to record intergenerational indigenous oral histories—Mexican, Oaxacan, Zapotec. That started at our Felipe de Nepa branch. The MARKINGS grant will result in an oral history collection that we'll be hosting on our platform and making available on our digital collection site.

There is a third Mellon grant, LA County Library is the lead on that and we’re partners, that is focusing around climate change, and has an oral history component collecting stories of Altadena and Palisades. That's in the works.

“...we're seeing this in real time—the impact this loss of funding has on our ability to… [help] people who are marginalized or traumatized tell their stories.”

Do you have any IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) grants right now?

Not in the areas that I supervise. There might be some other grants that are happening system-wide, but I can't say with certainty whether we do or not.

One of the reasons that I find projects like this one so interesting, is because we are seeing these stories from marginalized groups be actively erased at the federal level. [The administration is] threatening IMLS grant funding for museums that don't agree with the administration's version of our history, taking out national park signs that mention slavery, attacking universities and institutions that try to reveal these stories that have been left out of the record.

I'm wondering, have you guys felt any of that pressure from the administration? You mentioned that there were funding cuts. What has that been like for you guys?

I mean, the funding cuts have been real. IMLS funding was recently reinstated, but the threat and backlash against the work that we're doing to uplift everyone's story is real. I think everybody sees it on a daily basis in this country, unfortunately. But like I said, the Mellon Foundation and other funders have stepped up in a big way to make sure that we're covered in that sense.

A lot of smaller organizations are grappling with that sustainability question, and that's something we won't have to worry about too much (hopefully). We recently had a wonderful workshop by this group in Oakland called Voice of Witness that unfortunately lost their funding and are half folded. They did trauma-informed oral history workshops, and over 27 [members] of our staff attended to learn more about how to do that. It was just a wonderful workshop, and I wanted to repeat it in the fall. And then I got an email from them that they unfortunately lost their funding and are closing their doors. It's just so sad.

We're seeing this in real time—the impact this loss of funding has on our ability to train staff, and learn more about helping people who are marginalized or traumatized tell their stories.

Yeah, that seems like a huge problem. What are you guys going to do to address that?

I mean, trying to continue that work in some way is important. Voice of Witness is one of many organizations that have lost their funding, and are unfortunately facing closure. That puts a bigger burden on us as an institution to help continue that good work in some way, but we also grapple with our own issues with funding, and bandwidth, and staffing.

We're small but mighty, and I just think our staff are incredible. I mean, people talk about the building and, with the Central Library [anniversary] celebrations, we talk a lot about Central Library as an institution. But really, staff are the most important thing, and make all of this stuff happen, and move mountains with very few resources, and continue to do that.

So your hope for the future comes from the belief in your team.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

“People still want to tell their story, and they're unafraid to tell their story, which is a beautiful thing.”

Going back to protecting the histories of people who are being targeted: I'm wondering if community-based historical projects like these have an advantage in this chaotic federal situation, maybe as smaller targets, for example.

Or maybe, is it a better way for a community to have a reckoning with its past, if it's [framed as] “You are now including your neighbors,” instead of this abstract idea of like, “Understanding the nation’s racist past?”

We're always participating in some kind of reckoning. We're participating in the reckoning of our collections not being reflective of everyone and trying to remedy that. Reparative description—how things have been described, traditionally, in libraries are not always reflective of the item’s [actual cultural history or significance]—and metadata work has been huge in libraries as well. I mean, that's just internally.

For the oral histories—yeah, I imagine learning more about your neighbor is always a good thing to do. We show how we have more commonalities than differences that way, right?

The MARKINGS project (that is not live yet, but is going to be hosted by LAPL) is really significant in that way, because it's intergenerational oral histories of indigenous [immigrant] communities that are feeling the effects of ICE and everything in real time. I've been having conversations with the project manager and they've—just imagine that extra layer of concern of those communities, and their privacy issues, possibly being targeted because of their immigration status. It makes it even more meaningful as a project. Other than “Okay, we're going to capture an intergenerational history,” there's just so many more layers there.

We talked a lot about privacy issues, and that some people are going to want to keep their oral histories on a private view rather than a public view, perhaps, and the implications of that. People still want to tell their story, and they're unafraid to tell their story, which is a beautiful thing. But at the same time, the impact, or possible impact, on their lives is real. So there's just so much more we need to talk about.

What is it like to hear those stories? You’re talking about how it is both an interesting story historically, but also so much in the present is impacting the stories from that project. How does it feel to sit there and witness them?

I haven't actually participated in those oral histories, so I can't say firsthand. I will be listening to them when they're made public, just as everyone else will.

I mean, just anecdotally in my conversations with [the MARKINGS project manager] Nestor Guerrero, we talked about his experience doing them. There's also an added layer of the language. It's hard enough to go over a transcription. The AI does a wonderful job, like I would say 95% accurate transcription. But when you have another language, it adds another layer of time and effort. And then you have the indigenous languages, and [you need] staff available to do the transcription in those languages, and make sure that it's accurate and a representation of the people being interviewed. There's a lot of work that goes into that. It's no small feat.

I know you guys also had a partnership with the Los Angeles Poverty Department, and that [project] was with homeless populations in LA. Have those oral histories been put up anywhere?

The LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department) and the Skid Row History Museum and Archive—their Walk the Talk Archive is already up on their site, so they've already provided access. They've done incredible work with stories of the unhoused in Los Angeles, and we are working with them as part of the CommUnity grant as well.

Yeah, those [voices] especially seem really important, but also harder to reach through the kind of networks that the library already has. So I was curious about that.

Yeah, I've done a few projects with a professor at USC. His name is Robert Hernandez. He teaches digital journalism, and one of his projects—he got some 360-degree cameras and gave them to various people in the unhoused population of Los Angeles, and asked them to record their own story. So they'd be like sitting in their tent and recording their own story, or telling the story of how they met. And they were not just given the cameras and asked to record the stories, but he did a whole session here at the library. We used one of the meeting rooms to teach them how to storyboard and tell a story, and what goes into the narration of a story. So it was really very thoughtfully done.

And I will say, as a building manager and as a librarian, we have patrons from all walks of life. We have a lot of people who are unhoused in Los Angeles coming through our doors every day. But it was really the first time that I sat at a table with a whole bunch of them and heard their stories firsthand. I can tell you, it was very moving and emotional, just to be in the workshops with them while they were initially telling their stories, even before they recorded them. And then I saw the recordings afterwards, and it was really amazing. And Robert is on our advisory board for the Mellon Project, so hopefully we'll do something interesting like that.

“…at the Los Angeles Public Library and other libraries, we recognize that we're the last democratic institution left standing…”

What would be your vision, your dream, for the oral histories’ next phase of life? Who do you want to see them, and how are you guys getting the word out to make that happen?

I think we've been really focused on building capacity, and getting as many oral histories done as we can, especially with the institutional oral histories. We lost the opportunity to interview two very important librarians who had retired and both passed away. So it was top of mind to do that, and keep up with the oral histories for the institutional archive.

There's one librarian who we have still yet to interview, who is in her 90s now, and lost her home in the Palisades fire. Imagine, at the age of like 94, losing your home—burned to the ground—and we haven't had a chance to interview her yet. So we feel like, in some sense, we're racing against the clock, and we've missed some opportunities.

So I think it is more top of mind right now for us to build capacity, and for me it's like, “How do we institutionalize the oral history program? How do we make it a part of our regular work? How do we build capacity and bandwidth to do this work?” And we've had so much interest from other community organizations, people do know that we exist, and I think they're looking to us for guidance as well. So it puts an added responsibility on us as an institution, like people are looking to us to steward their collections and tell their stories. So there's a lot there to unpack.

We're not unique in that sense, a lot of institutions are doing oral histories. Maybe we're unique as a public library, we might have more reach and access—that's our strong point, right? The accessibility part is greater with a public library, people know that they can come to our site, and our digital collection site, find [what they’re looking for], and discover things. And it might be easier for them to find an oral history on our site than on a smaller site, or a standalone site.

So that's also going to be a focus moving forward. And I hope to see more staff involved in the effort.

So the outbound stuff is on the back burner for now.

Yeah. I think broadly, at the Los Angeles Public Library and other libraries, we recognize that we're the last democratic institution left standing, so to speak. You know, we're the place where people can come for free, and still get everything for free, and we offer so much more than just books. It's no longer a place where people just come for something that they need to read, it’s whatever they need, pretty much. You can get help, and we take that very seriously.

And we also take our role in promoting digital literacy and also critical thinking very seriously. For example, we have a program where anybody can book a session with a librarian to learn how to use our resources and do a deeper dive. That's basically teaching people how to look at things and think critically, at the end of the day.

We've been doing that consistently as an institution for a very long time. For example, we have computer training classes, one of them was highlighting how to critically look at a website. How do you determine that a website is accurate and valid? And what are the signs to look for? And I think that any librarian, during a reference interview or an interaction with a patron, if that comes up, they are guiding them on how to do that, and what sources to look at. You know, not just guiding them towards our resources and showing them, “These are the things that you can look at if you're doing X research,” but also, “What are the components that make this a site that's worthy and valid of your time, and how do you evaluate that?” because it is hard right now, and it's becoming even harder. I think that we're more cognizant of that role than we were before.

I just attended the American Library Association conference in Chicago, and a big focus of the conference was impacts of AI on websites, and information, and people looking at information, and even our work—how we do our work is being heavily impacted, and how people are getting hired. It's a never-ending sort of continuum of impact. So I think that those conversations will be even more top of mind moving forward. It's something that everybody is thinking about.

We're also interested in ethical stewardship of our stuff. Special collections, too, have become a lot more important, because we want all of our collections to reflect the community as well. So, special collections are not just rare materials that nobody can look at or touch, they're reflective of the community. I think it's a different way of looking at what special collections are and need to be.

Here’s a question from the crowd [Gordon Whiting]: Do you sense any change in the public's embrace of the library, perhaps in reaction to the threats to civic balance?

We've always received a lot of library love. I think that we're receiving even more library love now, because people trust us as an institution. The patrons trust us as a safe place, and other institutions and organizations also trust us as a place to steward their collections. I've had calls from various small institutions that no longer have the capacity to continue their oral history programs. And we are looking at how we can steward those collections, because we figure we're going to be around for another 100 years.

We're a strong institution, we recently celebrated our 100th anniversary on July 11th. We had a huge celebration, we had over 12,000 people come through the doors, and it was amazing. I did four special collections tours. We were completely sold out. And the love from the patrons was so wonderful and palpable.

I think that they are so appreciative that we exist as an institution, and we are that safe space, and we are continuing the fight against disinformation. And we are a place where you can come and do your research, and make up your own mind, and have your own opinion, but also be able to seek the truth, right?

Yeah, that makes total sense to me. I think there's a general feeling that places for the public to exist are shrinking. So when you say that the library is one of the last democratic institutions left standing, that's what I think about.

The information aspect of that is also huge. You’re one of the only places that is safeguarding the quality of information, rather than using it for you own gain, and one of the last places that is welcoming in the public for free, trying to provide a service.

“…we're providing that place where people can come and learn unfettered, and also find a reflection of themselves.”

What other ways would you define a democratic institution, and [how does] a library fulfill those?

Well, it’s a place where you can find all kinds of information about any topic, and also we don't want to censor anybody's voice. I think that, with our collections, with our staff, with our services, we're providing that place where people can come and learn unfettered, and also find a reflection of themselves.

Is partnering with other archives something that you're considering? Or another museum, maybe even something like the Internet Archive?

I love the Internet Archive, so I can talk your ear off about the Internet Archive. I think they're doing incredible work, making everything accessible and free to everybody. And Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, has said his goal in life is to make everything accessible to anybody with an internet connection, anywhere in the world. And they are doing incredible work digitizing all formats.

We don't have a question of where things may live, because we do have a platform, and we have a website. And things can live in different places. For example, we did a grant-funded project with California Revealed where we digitized a newspaper called The Liberator that we owned in our collection.

We owned a few copies of this periodical and we reached out to the family, to the Edmonds family. The great-great granddaughter of Jefferson Edmonds, who edited The Liberator, had all of the copies in their family vault. We got together and we did an agreement where we took all of their holdings and had them digitized. The Internet Archive did the digitization, so it lives at the Internet Archive and on our site. It was just a fabulous project of surfacing a special collection for the public.

Another collection that we're hosting that has not been published yet, because they're still working on it is ACT UP LA. So there are about 100 interviews of [people who were] AIDS activists in the 80s. They're mostly done in 4k video, they're long-form interviews, and they're currently working on all of the transcription and editing work on those. And we're really excited about posting that archive. And we actually have an exhibition planned at the end of 2027 to celebrate World AIDS Day as well, and highlight that ACT UP LA collection.

So we're trying to cover people who are creating information (as a lot of information structures are under attack at the federal level) for researchers and people who have been left in lurch by their programs disappearing, or datasets that they referenced going away. So I'm coming at it like—historians should know about this project. People who are interested in the history of LA should know about it.

What would be your pitch to those people? Like, “Come look at our stuff because…”

We want people to know what we have, but we also want people to know what they can access here. I think people are unaware in general of all of the wonderful services and things that they can access for free (even databases) that might be behind a paywall elsewhere, especially at academic institutions where you need to pay for a library card, or you need to be a student or faculty to have access. Here you can get it for free, and we're very cognizant of that with our collections as well.

The Central Library is sort of like a hybrid public-academic library. Our collections are very deep. I'm constantly surprised at the stuff that we have, that librarians have been building over the years. So we are also a research facility—as well as being a public institution with fun things, we also can cater to that serious academic side. I think people need to know that we have the subject specialists here at Central Library who have really deep, abiding knowledge of their subject areas. And each of our departments are like whole, big, branch libraries with very very deep and great collections, but it's the staff that brings everything to life.

I think I'd want people to know of all of the services that they can get for free beyond all of the things that I've mentioned. Whether you know they need help doing genealogy research or whether they need help filling out their immigration forms, it just runs the gamut. And we also have Career Online High School, where you can finish up your high school degree, and we host the graduations here. So there's just so much that happens in this institution, system wide. I want people to just come through our doors and find out more about that.

That's such a good point—just because the library serves the public, doesn't mean it's not also for serious academics.

The reason I became interested in looking into libraries, and museums, and other public-academic institutions (which I've been calling bridge institutions), is because I think that adds to their longevity—this relationship with the public. When we're in a time of rising anti-intellectualism, where the public is being turned against academia, the ability to invite them in is a real [strength] of the library, I think.

No, I second that. I think you just summed up, very succinctly, what I was rambling on about. Ultimately, it's a place where people can come to do research, or people can just come to do recreational reading, and everything in between. And they can get help doing it, we’re more than happy to help get people started on their deep dives. We don't offer research services, but we guide people on how to use the collections. And like I said, we guide people to look at the information critically in that process. So it's a lot of responsibility that we love.

You can be responsible and fun. I feel like some academics shun that, but fun is an asset to me.

“Especially now, in the AI age, every human connection is one that binds us. The human connection is what makes this work important.”

What would be your advice for somebody who wanted to start a similar oral history project in their own community, maybe at their own library?

We did also get that question during the webinar that I had with Zach. Some institutions are interested in starting oral histories, and [advances in technology have made it] easy enough to dive into now. I think that platforms like TheirStory are so helpful in making the whole process a lot easier.

It might seem daunting to do an oral history project. But, I mean, I've done oral histories using my Apple Watch. I've recorded my parents—anytime they start telling a story, I'll just hit the record button on my Apple Watch.

That's the whole idea behind the oral history backpacks for the CommUnity grant. It's empowering people to do it in their homes with equipment that is specialized, and can offer better audio than a regular smartphone (which is pretty good).

It does seem like a more pressing thing now, maybe more important, because all of our lives are conducted over digital media. It doesn't have that same kind of automatic, accidental preservation that like, writing letters would. So I think that's an interesting wrinkle with this.

Yeah, and people love doing oral histories. I will tell you that when I reach out to somebody and I ask them if they want to do an oral history, they'll always say yes. They'll always want to come into Central Library. They'll want to come into the podcast room. I think it makes them feel valued, and that's another thing that we want. We want everyone in the community to feel valued.

For example, I just did an oral history with a mother and daughter [pair of] merchants of Olvera Street, and they were talking about how generations of families have worked on Olvera Street and how it's changed so much, and now is facing cuts and closure. Sylvia Gribbell, the daughter, is trying to bring awareness of this as a cultural landmark, and an important story of Los Angeles. It's shining a light, not just on the people of Los Angeles, but on institutions that might be fading and facing hardship, and what we can do, collectively, to help.

I love that—inviting them to share their history makes them feel valued. That's another thing I really love about bridge institutions, that involving people in research solidifies the community bond a little bit more. I feel like that is very important at this particular point in history, so that's really cool.

I think that is all of the questions that I had. Anything else I'm missing? Anything else you want to say about the program or the library?

I just want people to come and discover the library, and all of the services that we have to offer, and the wonderful staff that bring everything to life. I think that would be my message, ultimately.

It's hard, sometimes, to show the value of the work that we do because it's very personal and it's one-on-one, right? But we've heard through the testimonials during Central 100 like, “The library changed my life. At a time when I was facing a lot of hardship in my life, the library was one place that accepted me, and welcomed me, and helped me grow.” You touch a human life, and that one-on-one connection is a very meaningful connection. Especially now, in the AI age, every human connection is one that binds us. The human connection is what makes this work important. And it's not lost on us that, as we are continuing, an important part is maintaining that human connection.

Edited for clarity and sequencing.