IN DEPTH
Making room for diffi cult conversations in the library
Former journalist, traveller, photographer, tourist guide, interpreter, Zen centre volunteer and an experienced book translator, Olena Waskiewicz is now Senior Library Assistant at Martial Rose Library at the University of Winchester. As part of that role, she has been running Human Library Winchester for the past four years and here she explains the principles behind it and how it works in practice.
THE idea of the Human Library fi rst originated in Denmark in 2000, at Rotskilde rock festival. Since then Human Libraries have been run in almost 80 countries across the globe, from Sweden, Poland and the USA to Kazakhstan, India and Australia. It’s based on a deceptively simple idea of a library where “books are people, and reading is a conversation”. Visitors can choose from a selection of “titles” and have a half-hour conversation with a Human Book.
The ground rules of openness and respect mean that the participants can dive straight into the deep end. They can ask any ques- tions, but have to be prepared to get asked questions back, and their own prejudices challenged.
Human Books are all volunteers, who are willing to open up and talk about their life to strangers, in the hope that through conversation and direct interaction they will help dispel prejudice and bias. Because Human Book titles refl ect those aspects of their identity which lead to stigma or preju- dice in society, they can vary depending on where the Human Library is held, the local community and the target audience. Gener- ally, titles refer to racial or ethnic identity, sexuality and gender, religion, occupation, lifestyle, disability and health and life ex- periences and traumas. A person can have more than one title, and so although the initial choice by the reader is based on one of them, during the course of the conver- sation a diff erent aspect may come to the
28 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Olena Waskiewicz MA (
Olena.Waskiewicz@winchester.ac.uk @byolena) is Senior Library Assistant, Periodicals and Technical Services at Martial Rose Library, University of Winchester, where she also runs Human Library Winchster (@humanlibwinch).
fore. All people are diff erent and so are the conversations!
No more small talk I can’t remember when I fi rst heard about the Human Library concept, but I have always thought it sounded amazing. Then, in 2017, I thought – if I would like to see it happen in Winchester, why not organise it myself? My managers at the Library were extremely sup- portive of the idea and so I managed to put the event together in less than a month. We had eight Human Books and the space was buzzing with a hum of voices.
The most amazing conversations can happen when you get such a diverse range of people into one room. Because they are all meeting in those special circumstances, when societal norms of small talk and not asking personal questions are
March 2020
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