Okay, short version:
Some big news, and it’s news that many of you may have mixed feelings about: Episode 250 will be the final episode of The Library Police podcast. But while this show is ending, we're still going to be talking about stories soon - just in an entirely new way. For more information, read on, and check out the end of Episode 245, which will be published this weekend.
Dietrich: In October of 2011, the two of us decided that the long, slightly exhaustive discussions about books that we’d been having since we met in college should be recorded and released for posterity, and The Library Police podcast was born. Initially, only our mothers listened (or so they claimed; our download numbers would seem to disagree). However, we kept recording, kept publishing, and over the next eight years, released well over two hundred episodes, dozens of interviews, and gathered a small but wonderful community of listeners.
This podcast has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Through the years, The Library Police has led me to explore the literary world and grow as a reader, introduced me to some of the best writers in the world and some remarkable friends (many of which are one and the same), and been a constant through career changes, marriage, and much more. Our listeners are some of the brightest, kindest people you could find on the Internet, and I’m baffled and flattered every day that they choose to spend part of their time with us.
However, in recent years, we have both begun to feel that while we have lost none of our passion for books, our actual love was storytelling - not just storytelling through prose and fiction, but through visual elements, music, graphic design, interactive games, and so much more. We began this podcast to do for others what we’ve always done for each other: to encourage the discovery of new and remarkable books. But now, we want to encourage the discovery of new and remarkable stories, no matter what form they take. This doesn’t mean that we’re going to leave books behind, though! We just feel like storytelling is evolving in the modern world, and focusing only on books limits us from being able to discuss some of our other passions. Storytelling has evolved incredibly quickly over the last decade, and limiting our discussion to one form of media no longer feels right.
In the last year, Josh and I experimented with a new idea: the playlist episode. Through these episodes, we assembled a reading list inspired by The Americans, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and more. This idea will form the basis of a brand new podcast we will be launching soon, called The Playlist. The Playlist will be all about helping you discover the very best in storytelling, whether that be podcasts, films, music, television, games, comics, journalism, or books. Our goal will be to use major books, films, television shows, and other creative works as a jumping-off point to discover other stories you’ll love, whether those are movies, games, or any other type of experience. Much as we did in those playlist episodes, we’ll be trying to help you discover new stories to consume, without limiting ourselves to one medium.
This is a big change, and we know that the idea of moving away from a book-exclusive podcast may disappoint some of you. Indeed, it’s something we’re aware of, but there’s no denying that as the hosts of the show, we’ve found ourselves pushing against the boundaries of our podcast in recent episodes, and wishing we could branch out further. So, yes, we know this is a change, and we know we may lose some of you along the way. But we hope that each and every one of our listeners will join us in this new experiment, and we hope that the remarkable family that we’ve developed through The Library Police will grow just a bit more.Our goal is to keep the same enthusiasm, geekiness, and passion for stories going into this next phase of the podcast, and still keep the focus on the power of stories, even if it’s not solely about writing anymore.
To every listener, author, guest, and friend that has been a part of The Library Police: Thank you. It’s been a privilege. Now let’s see what comes next.
Josh: We’ve been recording The Library Police for nearly a decade, and over that time, we’ve seen massive changes in the book industry, learned to embrace our e-readers, read a terrible book by James Franco, geeked out over Cloud Atlas, watched as Game of Thrones ushered in a golden age of book to TV adaptations, and so much more - and that’s not even getting into the way we’ve developed a listenership that neither of us really ever expected. Who wants to listen to a couple of nerds from Tennessee geek out about books? Turns out, more people than I assumed (which was none).
But all good things have to come to an end, and we’ve both known the show couldn’t last forever. Finding topics is hard, but more than that, there was a desire in both of us for some change - for a way of staying true to the things we love to talk about, but of giving ourselves some new guidelines and places to play. If the storytelling industry is changing, we wanted to be able to follow it to new places, and that meant opening ourselves up to talking about other forms of media without a sense of guilt that came with it every time we did an episode about The Adventure Zone or Breaking Bad.
Do I have some mixed feelings about the end of The Library Police? Undeniably - but then I remind myself that it’s all still out there, all 250 episodes (more than that, technically) of the weird, lumpy, labor of love that we made. Whatever else happens with this new thing, we made that, and I’m proud of it, warts and all. I’m proud of the authors we talked to, of the books we discovered, of the community we started to build, and more than anything, of reminding both other people and often myself that books were something more than just a niche hobby, and something worth discussing in intelligent ways. And more than that, we heard from other people who liked it too - and that means more than I can possibly explain. It’s a great feeling to find out that not only are there more people like you out in the world, but that they like what you’re doing - and that means a lot.
So I know that some of you may not love this change, but all I can say is, it’s the right thing for us, and that we’re still going to be talking about stories and storytelling - just in a way that spans more than one form of media, without the guilt that’s attended such spanning for us in the past. And I hope you stick with us, but even if not, thank you for making the past nearly-a-decade (!) so great.
Some big news, and it’s news that many of you may have mixed feelings about: Episode 250 will be the final episode of The Library Police podcast. But while this show is ending, we're still going to be talking about stories soon - just in an entirely new way. For more information, read on, and check out the end of Episode 245, which will be published this weekend.
Dietrich: In October of 2011, the two of us decided that the long, slightly exhaustive discussions about books that we’d been having since we met in college should be recorded and released for posterity, and The Library Police podcast was born. Initially, only our mothers listened (or so they claimed; our download numbers would seem to disagree). However, we kept recording, kept publishing, and over the next eight years, released well over two hundred episodes, dozens of interviews, and gathered a small but wonderful community of listeners.
This podcast has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Through the years, The Library Police has led me to explore the literary world and grow as a reader, introduced me to some of the best writers in the world and some remarkable friends (many of which are one and the same), and been a constant through career changes, marriage, and much more. Our listeners are some of the brightest, kindest people you could find on the Internet, and I’m baffled and flattered every day that they choose to spend part of their time with us.
However, in recent years, we have both begun to feel that while we have lost none of our passion for books, our actual love was storytelling - not just storytelling through prose and fiction, but through visual elements, music, graphic design, interactive games, and so much more. We began this podcast to do for others what we’ve always done for each other: to encourage the discovery of new and remarkable books. But now, we want to encourage the discovery of new and remarkable stories, no matter what form they take. This doesn’t mean that we’re going to leave books behind, though! We just feel like storytelling is evolving in the modern world, and focusing only on books limits us from being able to discuss some of our other passions. Storytelling has evolved incredibly quickly over the last decade, and limiting our discussion to one form of media no longer feels right.
In the last year, Josh and I experimented with a new idea: the playlist episode. Through these episodes, we assembled a reading list inspired by The Americans, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and more. This idea will form the basis of a brand new podcast we will be launching soon, called The Playlist. The Playlist will be all about helping you discover the very best in storytelling, whether that be podcasts, films, music, television, games, comics, journalism, or books. Our goal will be to use major books, films, television shows, and other creative works as a jumping-off point to discover other stories you’ll love, whether those are movies, games, or any other type of experience. Much as we did in those playlist episodes, we’ll be trying to help you discover new stories to consume, without limiting ourselves to one medium.
This is a big change, and we know that the idea of moving away from a book-exclusive podcast may disappoint some of you. Indeed, it’s something we’re aware of, but there’s no denying that as the hosts of the show, we’ve found ourselves pushing against the boundaries of our podcast in recent episodes, and wishing we could branch out further. So, yes, we know this is a change, and we know we may lose some of you along the way. But we hope that each and every one of our listeners will join us in this new experiment, and we hope that the remarkable family that we’ve developed through The Library Police will grow just a bit more.Our goal is to keep the same enthusiasm, geekiness, and passion for stories going into this next phase of the podcast, and still keep the focus on the power of stories, even if it’s not solely about writing anymore.
To every listener, author, guest, and friend that has been a part of The Library Police: Thank you. It’s been a privilege. Now let’s see what comes next.
Josh: We’ve been recording The Library Police for nearly a decade, and over that time, we’ve seen massive changes in the book industry, learned to embrace our e-readers, read a terrible book by James Franco, geeked out over Cloud Atlas, watched as Game of Thrones ushered in a golden age of book to TV adaptations, and so much more - and that’s not even getting into the way we’ve developed a listenership that neither of us really ever expected. Who wants to listen to a couple of nerds from Tennessee geek out about books? Turns out, more people than I assumed (which was none).
But all good things have to come to an end, and we’ve both known the show couldn’t last forever. Finding topics is hard, but more than that, there was a desire in both of us for some change - for a way of staying true to the things we love to talk about, but of giving ourselves some new guidelines and places to play. If the storytelling industry is changing, we wanted to be able to follow it to new places, and that meant opening ourselves up to talking about other forms of media without a sense of guilt that came with it every time we did an episode about The Adventure Zone or Breaking Bad.
Do I have some mixed feelings about the end of The Library Police? Undeniably - but then I remind myself that it’s all still out there, all 250 episodes (more than that, technically) of the weird, lumpy, labor of love that we made. Whatever else happens with this new thing, we made that, and I’m proud of it, warts and all. I’m proud of the authors we talked to, of the books we discovered, of the community we started to build, and more than anything, of reminding both other people and often myself that books were something more than just a niche hobby, and something worth discussing in intelligent ways. And more than that, we heard from other people who liked it too - and that means more than I can possibly explain. It’s a great feeling to find out that not only are there more people like you out in the world, but that they like what you’re doing - and that means a lot.
So I know that some of you may not love this change, but all I can say is, it’s the right thing for us, and that we’re still going to be talking about stories and storytelling - just in a way that spans more than one form of media, without the guilt that’s attended such spanning for us in the past. And I hope you stick with us, but even if not, thank you for making the past nearly-a-decade (!) so great.
