Today is the third class in our current four-class set. We will begin class with a speaking exercise that will help us be more concise. Our grammar unit today is unit 126.
Our reading this week is about a human library. I will ask you about all the interesting people you have met in your life.
Click HERE for the in-class material
At This Library, You Can “Borrow” People Instead of Books
Why do you go to the library? For books, yes—but you like books because they tell stories. You hope to get lost in a story or be transported into someone else’s life. At one type of library, you can do just that—even though there’s not a single book.
At a Human Library, instead of books, you can “borrow” people. People with unique life stories volunteer to be the “books.” For a certain amount of time, you can ask them questions and listen to their stories, which are as fascinating and as immersive as any you can find in a book.
Many of the stories have to do with some kind of stereotype or stigmatized topic. You can speak with a refugee. A soldier suffering from PTSD. A homeless person. A woman living with HIV. The Human Library encourages people to challenge their own preconceived notions—to truly get to know, and learn from, someone they might otherwise make a snap judgment about. According to its website, The Human Library is “a place where difficult questions are expected, appreciated and answered.”
The Human Library Organization came to be in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2000. Ronni Abergel, his brother Dany, and some colleagues hosted a four-day event during a major Northern European festival, hoping to raise awareness about violence among youth. After the success of this event, Abergel founded the Human Library Organization, which has been growing ever since.
Though there are a few permanent human libraries, most aren’t places at all, but events. Though many do take place at physical libraries, you don’t need a library card—anyone can come and be part of the experience. There have been human library events all over the globe, in universities and in pubs, from Chicago to Tunis to Edinburgh to San Antonio.
The stories these “books” tell range from fascinating to heartbreaking and everything in between. And that’s the very point of the organization—to prove that no person can be summed up in just one word. It seeks to show people that you truly can’t judge a book by its cover—or by its title or label.