(Ukrainian State University of Science and Technologies, Dnipro, Ukraine, 2023) Levine, Alan
ENG: As someone far from crises like the people of the Ukraine have faced, I have almost no business presenting answers to inspire others, only to share what I have received. My own awareness became more meaningful than what I saw in news and social media, thanks to the individual efforts to share stories at the human level. Through colleagues online I have been fortunate to first read the first hand stories of a USUST librarian living and working through the Russian invasion, and more opportunities to hear more in voice with caring support of a gifted translator (sharing the one Ukrainian expression I know), and to see in photos the people who preserved books, the inspiration and understanding grows exponentially. Later I can see in the background of one conference video a vase of sunflowers, which I cannot help seeing as a human thread over these distances. Small stories of individual experiences at the human level, unfolding and opening like flowers through multiple forms of media, are what inspire me.