Taking ‘never judge a book by its cover’ to a quite literal, human level, the Human Library is a concept that sees people volunteer as open ‘books’ so that others can learn of their lived experiences in order to challenge society’s prejudices. What started as a pop-up project at a music festival in Denmark more than 20 years ago has blossomed into an international, empathy-promoting non-profit spanning more than 80 countries.
The human books represent groups often subjected to prejudice, stigmatisation, or discrimination, whether it be because of their lifestyle, their religious belief, their disability, or the colour of their skin. Library founder Ronni Abergel says the “fairly simple” idea sees participants meeting in a “safe and secure environment”, such as traditional libraries or community centres, in order to get to know each other through the art of conversation. The books’ stories are wide-ranging, stretching from the everyday to the extraordinary – think young mums, survivors of abuse, and refugees – each one remarkable in their own way, and all with a desire to inform, share, educate, and most, importantly, challenge stereotypes.
Borrowing Human Books
In an act of positive objectification, each book is given a title – like Chronic Depression, Muslim, Naturist, or Transgender – to be ‘rented’ or ‘checked out’ for around half-an-hour by an individual ‘reader’, or small group, who can then ask questions they’d previously never had the chance, or courage, to pose.
Abergel is under no illusion about the nature of human character, recognising that “all people judge” and that the books and their readers are often likely to have opposing views. And so, the purpose is to create an opportunity “to unjudge”.
“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,” Bill Carney, or Black Activist, tells Forbes. “I’m not pompous enough to believe that a 25-minute conversation with me is going to change anybody. What I am pompous enough to believe is that if I can just instil the slightest bit of cognitive dissonance, then their brain will do the rest for me.”
Building a Library
It was on 29 June 2000, on a small grassy section of Copenhagen’s Roskilde Festival that the idea for a Human Library – known in Danish as Menneskebiblioteket – first took root, sharing the headlines with the likes of the Beastie Boys and Bob Dylan. More than 50 folks volunteered to be published as books at the pop-up event, including a journalist, a policeman, a parking officer, and rival football fans of Brøndby and FC Copenhagen, quizzed by more than 1,000 readers over four straight, eight-hour days. Today, the Human Library has a permanent complex in Copenhagen, its Book Depot surrounded by the Reading Garden with the entire dedicated area serving as a safe space for books, readers, and librarians to meet and converse.
The truly global movement has been hosted in countries across all continents (except Antarctica), and now also organises diversity and inclusiveness training via single-day, conference, and festival events. The purpose is to teach companies how to incorporate “social understanding and cultural awareness” into their businesses models in order to benefit their clients and customers while creating greater harmony within their teams. The highly respected non-profit has worked some of the world’s biggest and brightest brands such as eBay, IKEA, Rolls Royce, and Google.
The first Human Library’s Children’s Library occurred in 2019 at Copenhagen’s Culture House Islands Brygge, with 6- to 12-year-old readers able to choose from books with titles such as The Lady Who Cannot See (a blind volunteer), The Girl Who Did Not Look Like Her Parents (an adopted volunteer), and The Girl Who Ate Away Her Loneliness (a bulimic volunteer).
“People come to learn from my story,” says Dan, who has autism and ADHD, and has been a Human Library Book for six years. “The more people, who understand what autism is, and get to understand how to show consideration and be inclusive, the better for me and others like me.”
Like founder Abergel says, we make some seriously big assumptions about each other but “how are we to understand each other, if we do not have the opportunity to talk?”
Discover more about the Human Library, including how to host, at humanlibrary.org.
WORDS — Jamie Christian Desplaces
