Li-VE-brary

Imagine how it would be if the book you borrowed from the library can talk? How fast it would be to clear all your doubts and how informed you would be by the end of the conversation! Well you don't have to imagine that anymore - it's already happening in a Swedish library! But this time it isn't a book you're going to have to borrow - it's a human being.

I read about this on the papers yesterday and I found it really interesting a concept. The objective behind this human library I believe is that as the world today grows rapidly, we have also come to face alot of different groups of people and varying perceptions that lead to alot of prejudices. These prejudices may be simply due to the fact that we are uninformed about a certain group of people. It read "If you're one of those people who thinks all lesbians are sexually frustrated or thinks all animal rights activists are aggressive, then a Swedish library project that allows you to "borrow" a human being rather than a book may provide some useful insight." What this human library attempts to do is make a human representative of largely prejudiced groups available for the general public to borrow for 45mins. Then you get a chance to ask all your questions regarding them and clear your doubts to a certain extent.

Is this a brilliant idea that's going to work towards common understanding or is this going to be a total flop and if so why? I personally think it's great way to communicate face to face and know where they're coming from, even if that means at the end of the day I wouldn't be agreeing totally. But it might help me to learn something that I was not aware of before which would have lead to my prejudice about them - that may even change my views. On the other hand I might hate that person and my prejudice might grow worse lol - that's the negative side of using human references. I'm mostly prejudice-free but I really would like to talk to a terrorist. Wonder if they would pay such a person to offer services at the library :) Well, what are your prejudices and if you were given a chance who would you like to borrow from this human library and what questions would you ask?

It read "This weekend, nine people, including a homosexual, an imam, a journalist, a Muslim woman and a gypsy, will be available at the Malmoe Library for members of the public to "borrow" for a 45 minute conversation in the library's outdoor cafe.".
Beat that!