Human library brings books to life
The Merrill-Cazier Library will be checking out books that don’t have pages this week. The books are, rather than paper, people who have a unique story to share with the community at large.
Anne Hedrich, reference librarian, said the library has chosen a variety of “books” who all have different views on a variety of subjects.
“We present books so people can find out about something they wouldn’t have been able to ask about on the street, something that would seem maybe rude to talk about in everyday conversation,” Hedrich said. “But this way, people can have a conversation.
A conversation is exactly what the goal is, Hedrich said, so the librarians look for “books” with different ethnicities, nationalities, religions, people who are not typical for a specific occupation such as a male registered nurse.
“Our books are not experts necessarily on a topic, but they are experts on their own experiences,” Hedrich said. “So someone who has been through, and dealt with cancer isn’t a medical expert on cancer, but rather on their own experience with cancer.”
The important thing, Hedrich said, is that the human books provide readers with another viewpoint and become a vehicle to increase understanding and tolerance.
Rob Clark, a senior in international studies, said he experienced just that– a differing point of view– when he checked out a human book in January. The book was a professional meteorologist for Hollywood, a storm chaser, and a programmer.
“He worked for the big professional companies in Hollywood to coordinate filming schedules with the weather, he spent time on the central plains getting hailed on and dodging tornadoes,” Clark said. “He also wrote complex computer programs to model weather. And we chatted about that and global climate change. We disagreed on that- he just didn’t buy that it was happening.”
According to the Human Library Organization, the goal of the human library movement, happening worldwide, is to break stereotypes by challenging common prejudices in a humorous and positive way.
“The Human Library is an innovative method designed to promote dialogue, reduce prejudices and encourage understanding.”
Hedrich is hoping that the Merrill Cazier event will do just that, and said she’s created the opportunity by reaching out to community-wide groups to gather her human library of books.
“We do different things to find books, we look at groups and organizations like the Access and Diversity Center, interfaith religious groups in Cache Valley, and sometimes we know the (human) book.”
In this semester’s library, human books are sharing stories about themselves as well as their experiences, and range in topic from the daughter of parents who came to the United States as illegal immigrants to a philosophy major who believes in God. Each human book tackles misconceptions associated with their experiences, such as the concept that women can’t do science, or that all nude pictures are pornographic.
Hedrich said the idea is to answer questions that people may want to ask, but don’t know how to.
“The books are willing to share,” she said. “The books have said they’ve been able to collect their thoughts by doing this, to feel better about themselves and their experience.”
She also said when the human books have the opportunity to have an open audience, it reaches her goal of learning and tolerance, as well as continuing a discussion.
“I think the key is that people are able to tell a story and hear a story, directly from a person,” she said. “You can understand a topic more that way, get immediate feedback. The conversation is unique with each checkout.”
Clark said he’d never had a chance to really talk to someone new like he did at January’s event.
“It was an interesting experience in that I got to sit and ask questions, and talk about whatever I wanted to know,” he said.
This year, Clark said he’s looking forward to learning more from different books, and said the key to gaining knowledge is being bold and different.
“Be experimental with a book, try something you might not otherwise do,” Clark said. “Have fun with it, the books are really happy to chat.”
Hedrich said she hopes the event will bring a greater closeness in the community.
“I hope it will bring more connection here, and ideally to expand people’s ideas, break some misconceptions,” she said. “I hope people will try to talk to a book about something you don’t know about.”
The human library will be held in Library 101 Tuesday through Friday from 1-4 p.m. To see what books are available to check out, visit libguides.usu.edu/humanlibrary.
-april.ashland@aggiemail.usu.edu