To make reading easier for everyone, e-books and audio books have already been established. But have you ever imagined books to interact with you? Well, there’s one-of-a-kind Human Library in Hyderabad where books are replaced with humans for conversation. Instead of books, here you can actually borrow people who will be the ‘living books,’ telling stories and sharing their life experiences.

The first Human Library was started in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2000 by Ronni Abergel and his brother Dany, along with few colleagues.  The concept was designed to build a positive framework for conversations for challenging stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue. After that, the movement has spread to more than 70 countries, including India, in the span of 17 years.

In India, Human Library was organized by Amrita Goel from Indore in 2016. Inspired by the concept of human books, Harshad Fad organized Human Library in Hyderabad to help people learn, understand, as well as, appreciate social barriers and differences in various communities.

In Human Library, real people are on loan to readers for sharing their viewpoint on certain social issues and their experiences based on the same. With this unique library concept, the organisers are hoping to bring a change in the society through community stories.

At the Human Library, one doesn’t look for answers in the pages of a book. Instead, they choose a human being to find certain answers about social issues. This is a place where one can expect difficult questions that are appreciated and answered by the living book or the human book.

According to Fad,

Human Library is not a storytelling platform but more of a Q & A platform where difficult questions are expected and answered. We want people to challenge their prejudice and come out with a wider perspective of the society we live in.

How does Human Library function?

Fad and his friends usually organise the literary events where people are given the option to choose from a set category of human books. It works like a usual library where readers check out the catalogue and borrow any of the living books for a 30-minute conversation. Anyone can be a human book provided they have an interesting story to tell and even fit into the set categories given by the organisers.

During the 30 minute conversation, the human book is open to relevant questions for making the session more interesting and interactive. In case, more than one person wants to borrow the same living book, then a group session is conducted for the specific readers and the human book.

Well, it seems to be an interesting concept to break certain stereotypes by conversations. What makes this library even more interesting is the fact that it’s the one-of-its-kind library where no one will tell you to remain silent.

Via: ScoopWhoop