StoryCorps — a national program allowing average people to record interviews with friends, family and acquaintances in a mobile trailer-style recording booth — parked outside the Boston Public Library yesterday, welcomes guests ranging from school principals and students to lovers.

Founder Dave Isay — who began his career as a radio documentarian — started by giving microphones to his subjects, allowing them to interview one another. After noticing that speakers were empowered by the microphones, his interviewees spoke more openly and honestly than they had before. Afterward, he decided to offer a similar service to the public.

The microphone, he said, allows the speaker to shine a light on a place inside of them — a place that would not normally be illuminated.

MobileBooth Advance Coordinator Zachary Barr said the mission of StoryCorps is “to bring people together and have them document their own lives through sound.”

People entering the booth discuss an array of subjects, Barr said, adding that most people discuss important questions about life and share their thoughts with the people they love in an intimate setting.

Outside of the booth, a small stand is set up for bystanders and interviewees waiting for their turn, allowing them to listen to four different segments from the past few years.

One segment featured an elderly couple reminiscing about their relationship. In the commentary, Danny Perasa describes his relationship with his wife.

“I feel bad saying I love you so much,” he told her in the recording. “It’s like hearing a beautiful song from a busted old radio.”

Another interview available features 12-year-old Tyler Hightower and his Aunt Melva. In the recording, Tyler told his aunt that he used to feel sad when kids teased him for being overweight. He asked his aunt to tell him about the saddest ordeal she ever experienced and she responded by explaining that she had a friend who died of AIDS and that she missed him very much.

These are just two interviews among hundreds of others conducted every month across the nation.

Today’s first interview took place between Rev. John Finley, the head of an inner-city middle school in Dorchester, and his former student Stephanie Martinez, a high school senior at Windsor — an all-girls private school in the Boston area. As Martinez’ former principal, Finley contacted her to see how her experience at his school, Epiphany, had affected her.

Although they had a conversation topic planned, they both admitted that the conversation occasionally wandered into topics of racism, materialism and schooling in general.

Finley described the interview process as “talking with a purpose — unscripted, but thought about.” Martinez said she is planning to attend college in the Boston area to pursue studies in pre-medicine and international studies, stressing the role of her stay at Epiphany School.

“At Epiphany I learned to love myself first,” she said. “Then I learned to love school.”

Approximately 130 hour-long interviews were conducted after Finley and Martinez’s conversation.

The interviews, while recorded, are also aired on both National Public Radio every Monday and Wednesday from 6:35 a.m. to 8:35 a.m. NPR’s local affiliate, WBUR, is operated out of Boston University.

Sam Fleming, WBUR’s programming director, said WBUR will air interview segments mostly relating to Boston. Fleming said he was “excited about having [StoryCorps] here.”

In addition to airing on public radio throughout the United States, each recorded interview is chronicled in the Library of Congress’ archives at the American Folklife Center.

StoryCorps staff members listen to each interview and assign each a few keywords, so the public can search for a specific interview more easily.

The Boston Public Library will host the StoryCorps booth from Sept. 28 until Oct. 16, when it will be moved to City Hall until Oct. 22.

StoryCorps staff members urge Boston University students — as well as anyone who may be interested — to visit the booth and schedule appointments for interviews with loved ones.