VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Syracuse library displays bias awareness posters from Smithsonian
Louie Genovese: What can we do about bias? A lot. This is one of the 10 posters from the Smithsonian Institution’s Bias Inside Us Project. Founded in 2023, the project partnered with over 40 locations across the United States and was put on display at Petit last Janurary, according to Onondaga County Public Library coordinator Maggie Foster.
Maggie Foster: We’re very fortunate to be part of a public library system and have access resources from throughout the country we can request for free.
Genovese: The posters include specific questions such as how well do you really know your brain and do you know who feels welcome? Foster says they taught her how bias is a natural instinct that many aren’t aware of.
Foster: These people do not recognize what is kind of an automatic response from their own brain and that brain has developed a response from a variety of things.
Genovese: With the recent LA riots regarding immigration policies as well as the many changes to DEI, implicit bias remains an important topic to discuss. Foster says she hopes the posters spark good conversations among communities.
Foster: Being a hot topic it gives some very good basic starting points for any community members at any age and start a conversation on what it means to be biased.
Genovese: Foster says the current plan is to have the posters on display until August and eventually move them to other libraries in Onondaga County. Reporting on Westcott Street Louie Genovese NCC News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS) – Since 2023, the Smithsonian Institution has worked to bring a new educational tool to many communities across the country.
The project is called the Bias Inside Us and looks to educate people about how bias is part of human nature and how people can address it. Since January, the Petit Library on Westcott Street has displayed 10 posters from the project that serve as conversation starters into what implicit bias is.
Some of the questions range from, “Do you know your brain?” to “Do you really know your brain?”
The first poster as part of the Bias Inside Us project gives people an introduction on how bias is part of human nature. @ 2025 Louie Genovese
Maggie Foster, coordinator for Onondaga County Public Libraries, was one of the main people involved with the decision to feature these posters.
“We’re very fortunate to be a part of a public library system and have access to resources throughout the country that we can request for free,” she said.
Communities from the Midwest, Southeast, and the Southwest made requests to feature these posters, since the topic of implicit bias was big at the time. Foster said seeing what the messages said taught her something about bias she never thought of before.
“Bias is sometimes the unspoken kind of stereotypes that an individual may see upon another person and then react a certain way based on what they realize,” she said.
Some of the posters at Petit Library include different talking points for viewers, such as asking if you really know a person instead of a pre-concieved image of them. @ 2025 Louie Genovese
Even though the project started in 2023, a lot of its messages are still a part of today’s world. With the recent changes and DEI and immigration riots in Los Angeles, Foster hopes the posters can get community members, regardless of age, to see outside of what they think of a person and know who they really are.
“It’s very clear in 2025 that many of our library locations think that these questions and these thinking prompts are absolutely necessary for anybody to take a moment to read and educate themselves,” she said.
Foster said the posters will remain on display at the Petit Library until August and will eventually be shipped to other libraries throughout Onondaga County.