What is a human library? Can users lend a human book?
In general, a library is a place that provides knowledge and life-long education for people. The salient functions of any library are identifying, acquiring, organizing, disseminating, and preserving the knowledge for the utilization of their users. A traditional library contains printed books, newspapers, magazines and related materials. But, the concept of “human library” differs from other physical forms of library materials because the books in a human library are humans who can share their stories with users.
After the first human library was initiated in Copenhagen, Denmark by an international organization in 2000, the concept has been ratified as an effective method to share the knowledge and experience of people. The significance of human libraries is that the library consists of real people who are made of blood and flesh. Just like printed books, human books can be arranged according to different categories with the availability of human resources such as people with disabilities, refugees, LGBTQ people, cancer survivors, and etc. Accordingly, users can select and check out the human books that they are interested in and users can learn furthermore about that person in relation to the challenges and prejudices that he/she has faced, lifestyle, beliefs, discriminations, or experiences of stigma and stereotype. At the end of the one-on-one discussion, users would be able to learn a lot of real-life lessons. ” Founder of the human library concepts Ronni Abergel states “Based not on a quick judgment, but after more careful consideration and after meeting someone that knows about it, gives you a chance to judge someone.”
Furthermore, Ronni Abergel elaborates on the major objective of initiating a human library stating that it create a space,
“where you can walk in, borrow a human being and talk to them about a very challenging topic. Ideally, we wanted people to talk about issues that they normally would not talk about, or potentially don’t like to talk about, but that we need to talk about”.
Currently, we can observe that a large number of libraries throughout the world are organizing human library events for the benefit of their communities.
Culture and Cultural Conflicts
It is a widely felt and accepted fact that every country in this world is enriched with its culture and traditions. The vast majority of countries has multicultural societies that have diverse community groups. Culture distinguishes characteristics, beliefs, arts, knowledge, and other social- factors of different groups of people throughout the world. In the real sense of the word, since the term “culture” is embedded with a variety of perspectives and traditions, it rejuvenates diverse groups of people and symbolizes their inheritance.
As mentioned above, “culture” is an umbrella term that contains a wide variety of categories that have an inherent value. The world we are living in today is enriched with multi-cultural values and traditions. Since there are a myriad of cultural practices around the world, conflicts and cultural disputes among people are inevitable. Hence, although culture is the cornerstone of a nation, culture-based controversies are rampant among communities that are affiliated to different cultures. This phenomenon can affect the level of social cohesiveness which sometimes causes adverse repercussions, such as being hostile towards other cultural groups, civic disengagement, social tension and such other divergent trends. In this regard, the “ human library” concept would be a sin qua non to ensure the cultural – harmony of the society.
Relationship with Cultural diversity and Human Libraries
As it was mentioned earlier, books of a human library are humans who are from a wide variety of communities, social groups, ethnicities, and social backgrounds. Hence, they represent a different cross section of the society that consists of a heterogeneous cluster of cultures. According to the Human Library Organization,
“ Every human book from our bookshelf, represent a group in our society that is often subjected to prejudice, stigmatization or discrimination because of their lifestyle, diagnosis, belief, disability, social status, ethnic origin, etc.”.
Hence, a human library movement would be immensely useful to readers to understand cultural diversity and to uplift cultural inclusiveness that is predominately important for enhancing social cohesiveness and social tolerance throughout communities in different parts of the world. Forbes magazine referring to Bill Carney, a volunteer book in the Human Library states:
“It’s easy to hate a group of people, but it’s harder to hate an individual, particularly if that person is trying to be friendly and open and accommodating and totally non-threatening”.
Practices of Human Library concept around the world
Although the concept of “ The Human Library” was originated in Denmark, currently a large number of libraries around the world tend to practice the human library concept. You can find the human library organizers’ world map by clicking on this link,https://research.ppld.org/humanlibrary/worldwide
Human Library practices in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is an island that consists of inherited multicultural values and traditions. Since it has a heterogeneous population, the human library concept would be considered as a blessing to uplift socio-cultural harmony among different communities. In Sri Lanka, “the human library” concept is an emerging topic that is gaining attention among librarians. Especially academic and public libraries around Sri Lanka are making a concerted effort to initiate human libraries for the benefit of their users. As a result, in 2009 the University of Colombo and the University of Sri Jayawardenapura organized human library projects with the aim of encouraging their undergraduates to share their knowledge & experience with the appropriate academic communities.
Conclusion
Since every country in the world has its own cultural values and traditions, it is crucial to promote cultural – cohesiveness and harmony among communities to build society as a better place to live in. In this regard, human libraries play an important role by providing opportunities for building a better understanding and developing social inclusiveness in the society. Hence, initiating a social discourse by creating human libraries is the need of the hour for minimizing cultural friction and misunderstanding.
SHALANI JAYAMANNE 