Liberec - Human library 2011
Don't judge the book by the cover!
Location: Liberec, Czech Republic, Research library of Liberec region
Date and duration: 28th of March 2011, open from 10 a.m. till 5 p.m.
Main topic – Our main focus was on stereotypes in Czech society
Examples of book titles: Anorectic from Russia, Crazy in 20, Gay in love, Priest, Street worker, Polish, Roma writer,...
Numbers of books: 11
Numbers of lendings: 124
Used languages: Polish, English, german, czech
Organisers: LOS – Liberecká občasnká společnost, o.s., Reasearch Library in Liberec
Partners: Partners in the project BOOS21
Sponsors: Grundtvig programme, Bookstore Fryč
DETAILS short description
Selection of books:
We decided to create classic setting of living library so our main focus was on people who are victims of discrimination or social exclusion but also about historical tabu.
Preparation of books
You can see the handout for meeting with books in the annex but shortly: invitation – introduction – meeting – preparation of their story – risk asistment – expectations – action - evaluation
• Booking of books
We prepare a big table and we had more librarians so we did not prepare any online staff for booking. Just like in normal library.
• Advertising for the books
We used three of activities to support this event: Free hugs, Reading of annotation of books on the main squere in Liberec and living banner - you can see photos here
• how to create a safe space
We had some people who was going around the space and watch if it is everything all right. We had also an agreement with one policemen – and he was also a reader. We prepare the space to make it visible but also intimate. Librarians was in the place where they could see if something happen
• the tasks and challenges of different helpers
We had 17 people like a volunteers. Their main tasks were: librarians (5), movie and photo makers (2), advertisers (more than expected – people came to join our actions) and safety. Orginiser was out of roles to be available for media and for solving problems. No problems were coming.
• the tasks and challenges of dictionaries
No problem. We did not use dictionary we just knew who is able to speak in which language so if someone needed him we ask him to do it. And it worked.
• evaluation of the whole LL
For readers we had an official evaluation. For books we made final evaluation after opening hours in Human library.
