The Chapel Hill Public Library has recently received several grants that will be put toward two new projects.

According to executive director of the library Susan Brown, the first will focus on developing and producing a community-driven podcast focusing on the history of Chapel Hill.

“It’s about a $45,000 grant for equipment, skill-building, production for the first season of a podcast all about Chapel Hill history,” said Brown, “and the idea of the history, how it informs the present, and how we might design the future based on what we learn about the past.”

The podcast will be called Ghosts of Chapel Hill: Past, Present and Future and library experiences assistant Molly Luby will be the project manager, according to Brown.

The library also received a $25,000 grant from the Triangle Community Foundation and an additional $10,000 in matching funds from the Friends of the Library to create an outdoor learning space.

While specific plans are still in the works, the space is intended to be an extension of Pritchard Park’s Explore More initiative and will be geared toward Kindergarten through fifth grade class field trips and summer camps.

“We do all of these as responses to council interest, to community interest, to our business plan and to leveraging our strengths, so they’re really cool grants,” said Brown.

No timeline for the projects has been made public.

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