Kenny Cooper, a 2016 graduate of Cheltenham High School and a multiplatform reporter for WHYY, published an article today titled “Lending out a person instead of a book? Abington looks to ‘human library’ to foster conversations“.
The story details the Denmark-based Human Library concept, which has been encouraging strangers to converse since 2000.
The Abington Free Library’s version will take place on Sunday, January 12, at 1:30pm. More than a dozen people with a wide range of life experiences will serve as “books.”
“Participants will be encouraged to check out a person instead of a book. No registration is required,” Cooper wrote.
“I wanted to do recovery,” Lillian Gaffney of Glenside said. “I want to do ‘healing from,’ and so leading with the title of addiction is fine. But then I thought, I’d like my chapter to be around, ‘So what did you do to heal and what kind of avenues and resources would you recommend for people?’”
For more details, you can click here. From the library’s description of the event:
The Human Library is designed to build a positive framework for conversations that can challenge stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue. Participants–readers–can borrow human books to have conversations they would not normally have access to. Every human book is a community member and will represent a group in our society that is often subject to prejudice, stigmatization, or discrimination because of their lifestyle, diagnosis, belief, disability, social status, ethnic origin, etc.
Join us as a reader and enjoy 30 minute conversations with our books and learn about a life experience that may be different from your own.
No registration necessary. Upon arrival, readers will be given a library card and will be directed to the location of the human books they want to read.
This program is presented by the Human Relations Commission of Abington and the Abington Township Public Library.
For more information about the Human Library, see humanlibrary.org.
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