Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Hear Unique Stories - Visit the Human Library


The Gardner-Harvey Library is reaching beyond our normal array of books and DVDs and articles and, with your participation, sharing the stories of a collection of people:  a Human Library.  This effort, inspired by a group in Denmark (https://humanlibrary.org), is all about the opportunity to share our stories with one another.  We believe it is powerful to communicate with other people, and in particular to have the opportunity to talk to someone you would not ordinarily have access to.  

Our hope is to gather a collection of human "books" that represent different departments, groups, occupations, or identities in our society, and then hold an event in which the participants, or "readers," can borrow a member from the Human Library and have a conversation.  Maybe there is a question that readers have always wanted to ask someone about their hobby, their religion, their job, or their way of being in the world.  Through conversation we can work against bias, prejudices, and stereotypes and enhance common understanding.  

We will be holding the Human Library on Wednesday, March 10 from Noon until 1:00pm on Zoom (use the following link to join):


At the opening of the session, we will share a list of our human books, each representing a different group, occupation or identity in our society. You will have the opportunity to spend 5-10 minutes in breakout rooms with as many books as you would like and hear their stories.

We have already had some books volunteer, and you can watch a short video of some of them.

We are also interested in hearing your unique story as a book.  If you are willing to volunteerplease fill out our form.

Thank you so much for considering taking part.  Let us know if you have any questions.

John Burke, burkejj@miamioh.edu
Jessie Long, longjh@miamioh.edu
Jennifer Hicks, hicksjl2@miamioh.edu

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