Storytelling

Storytelling

Through storytelling workshops and contests, digital and physical exhibitions of stories, story gathering and story making, the Kraemer Family Storytelling Professorship initiative weaves together the narrative of UCCS Mountain Lions. Storytelling, or talk-story, celebrates the knowledge-creating elements of orality and oral history, integral to Indigenous epistemology, and thus a crucial element in decolonizing the academic library. Decolonizing the academic library includes decentering the written word and universalizing knowledge, and recentering orality, the spoken word, the telling and retelling of stories, and the importance of local knowledge—a reimagining and re-Indigenizing of a knowledge production center. 

In the News

Press stories highlighting the Library's storytelling initiatives, events, and awards. 

  1. The Scribe, October 21, 2024
  2. UCCS Communique, January 16, 2024
  3. Coalition for Networked Information, February 22, 2023
  4. UCCS Communique, February 21, 2023
  5. Lost in the Stacks, November 4, 2022
  6. Library Journal, October 12, 2022

Featured Events

The Purr Storytelling Hour

audience watching the purr storytelling hour contest

An annual storytelling contest hosted by the Kraemer Family Library and open to the community. 

Story Swap

students working at a typewriter

In collaboration with the bARTer Collective and Visual & Performing Arts, the Kraemer Family Library hosts an annual story swap event: Participants receive a piece of original artwork in exchange for their story. Using typewriters, the story-collectors capture a sense of our community one story at a time.

Six-Word Scary Stories

projector displaying six-word scary stories on a wall in the library

An annual event where the Kraemer Family Library invites UCCS community members to craft a chilling six-word story for spooky season. The six-word scary stories are displayed on the digital signage system in the Library. 

Resources