On Wednesday the 24th of January the Human Library set a new reader record with 500 employees from Danish international manufacturing company Velux, joining our “Reading Hall” sessions in Odense, the hometown of renowned author of fairy tales, Hans Christian Andersen. 

Reading Hall full of innovators

The Odeon concert hall floor was lined with tables all buzzing with courageous conversations. Yet the space revealed an amazing acoustic capability that ensured everyone in each group of “readers” were audible. The learning exercise was embedded in a global conference for staff from Velux Products & Innovation.

“We are here to kick off our next step to ensure a more sustainable and inclusive workplace” said Tina Mayn, Executive Vice President for products at Velux to Danish broadcaster TV2/Fyn. 

A fantastic learning experience

A body modified book with readers from Velux Products & Innovation.

Never before has the Human Library published its books for so many in one afternoon and the response from readers was both moving and quite significant. Hundreds submitted a reader’s review and many stopped by the librarians on their way out to say thank you for a great day.

“This was an incredibly beautiful and fantastic learning experience. I found it to be very valuable and I had outcomes that I know will stay with me” said Velux innovation and research lead Anna Clausen, after her readings.

Continuing the conversations online

More than 25 different topics were published for our record 500 readers from Velux. Including ADHD, autism, Cerebral Palsy, HIV, cancer survivor, amputee, transgender, obesity, and being body modified. 

To celebrate the milestone all 500 from Velux were invited to register for a complimentary Library Card with access to more readings on our online bookshelf. 

Anna Clausen also signed up for more books.

“I am curious to explore – “what I didn’t know, I didn’t know”. It’s pretzeled, but basically I have a great respect for the fact that there is so much I don’t know (nuances, similarities, taboos etc.) both on known and unknown topics.”

Conclusions

The Human Library sessions for Velux stands as a testament to the power of open dialogue in creating more inclusive workplaces. By breaking down barriers and encouraging conversations about diverse experiences, Velux has taken a significant step toward building a workplace that values the richness of its employees’ backgrounds and perspectives. The success of this event reinforces the importance of such initiatives in fostering understanding, empathy, and unity within organizations.

Watch the TV2/Fyn news report from the event here

Read more about the Human Library online here

Visit Velux here

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We are often told not to judge a book by its cover, but that is exactly what you need to do with the new diversity quiz from the Human Library. The methodology is simple, look, judge, swipe and reflect. The purpose of the quiz is to help our readers better understand how our bias influences the way we engage with other groups in our community.

“We recognize that it is part of human nature to navigate diversity by way of our unconscious bias and the quiz will help us understand that,” says HLO founder Ronni Abergel.

Reflecting on our bias

One of the questions in the new diversity quiz.

It takes less than five minutes to test your unconscious bias and complete a set of the questions. In short you are presented with an image of one or more of our books and a statement along with the choices you have.

You then swipe your answers according to your first instincts. The exercise ends with an opportunity to reflect on the judgements passed and mirror in how others judged.

Volunteer books

The content of the online diversity quiz is based in part on the experiences of our volunteer books from around the world. This means many of the stereotypes and prejudices included in the quiz are faced by real people everyday.

The project was made possible with support from the Danish Welfare and Research Foundation for Educators. 

Helping prepare readers to unjudge

The quiz is available in English and Danish for now, but more versions are in the pipeline. The quiz will primarily be used as part of preparing our coming readers from schools, colleges, universities and workplaces, for their visit to the Human Library. Follow the link below to try the new quiz.

https://quiz.humanlibrary.org/

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We are proud to announce the introduction of a new Human Library book depot for New York City. Over the past months members of many different communities have come together and joined forces to help us create safe spaces, where we can learn about our diversity.

Based in Brooklyn

New York now joins a list of cities across the US to host a local Human Library Book Depot. San Francisco, LA, Chicago, Muncie, Fort Wayne are others. It is not an easy task to build a book collection from scratch and to establish a strong group of librarians that can help publish our books to readers.

Technically the new book collection is based in Brooklyn and spearheaded by among other librarian and book depot manager Leslie Lucas Gallager.

“New York City is such a big place, but it’s really a patchwork of neighborhoods and personal networks. It has been a wonderful challenge for me and for our librarians to tap into those networks and find our friends (and friends of friends) who not only have a challenging aspect of their lives but are also willing to talk about it”.

Human Library founder Ronni Abergel is excited about the potential for impact in the city.

“New York and especially Brooklyn is one of the most diverse places on earth. So it is wonderful for us to finally be able to help build understanding across the many communities living here. With the resources now in place, we will be more available to local libraries, schools, colleges, universities, festivals and work places”.

Partnerships that are crucial to the sustainability of the book depot.

Publishing virtually at first

Due to the pandemic the first meeting with readers will be online and its planned for January 24th. A selection of the new book collection will be published using the Zoom platform.

Among the titles expected to be available you can find books on: “Unseen Disability”, “Homeschooler”, “Mother of a Transgender Daughter”, “Intersectional Blackness”, “Refugee”, “Mother of a son with Down’s Syndrome”, “Transracial Adoptee”, “PTSD”, “Non-binary”, “Lesbian”, “Lonely”, “Buddhist”, and “Formerly Incarcerated”. 

Rising demand online

The demand for the Human Library’s online events is rising sharply and more than 60 sessions are already planned for 2021. The January 24th event is free to readers and you need to be able to set aside two hours to become our reader.

You can find more information about the opportunity to participate in the launch of the new book depot for New York City by following the link below.

https://fb.me/e/13glTh8i0

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Our Human Library Book of the Month is a series of portraits of our books created with the purpose of offering our readers a chance to understand the diversity and variety within our bookshelves around the world. It also provides unique insights into the motivations and values of being a book and volunteering for our organization.

For Aske becoming a book in the Human Library was something that happened by way of coincidence. One day at school the Human Library was on the schedule for the days program. After attending as a reader Aske was approached by a librarian and encouraged to join the Copenhagen Book Depot. That was three years ago and the rest is history as they say.

“The event made such an impression on me, that when I gave it some thought I realized that my journey could also be of value to others and so why not try and help people better understand”, he says.

“When I publish my primary topic has been Transgender, but I am also lent out to be open about my social anxiety, a skitzotypical disorder and my body modifications. I stay a busy book.”

Aske can no longer recall how many times he has been published, but attends as many events as possible, which usually means two events and sometimes more, each month.

Challenging the stereotypes

Bestseller of the year 2018, Aske Ravn.

With 3 to 5 loans at each event, Aske is a very popular book and he has had many different conversations. 

“Every loan is different, but usually I challenge the first three main stereotypes, before I even open my mouth: You see to most people I don’t look “transgender” and very many of them are expecting to meet a man dressed as a woman, or they expect a cross dresser to come out”.

With the body modifications, the many piercings and tattoos along with significant facial hair in the form of a beard, Aske also has the experience that many readers assume that it must be quite difficult to find a partner.

 “I honestly have never ever had anyone turn me down because of my gender or body.” 

The complexity of transitioning

After the first most common are out of the way, many readers also tend to assume that Aske is looking to go through surgery for a formal gender change.

 “The thing is I have never wanted that. It is my impression that many of my readers are of the assumption that transgender’s transitions is a black and white thing. From one gender, to the other, with no gray zones. But usually it’s not, and actually most of the transgender people that I know, and that is quite a few, don’t feel like they need to change alot of things, because to us, there’s not really a change happening. We know who we are, we’re just telling the world how it is. To everyone else, it seems like a lot of change is happening, but really, we’re just finally living the life we always felt was right for us. And unfortunately, some changes need to happen to our body, for people to accept who we really are. 

Most frequently answered questions

Aske explains that usually the conversations will include questions such as; What did your parents say, what is your sexual orientation, and when did you know. From there the loan can go in many directions. 

“We talk about my feelings about transitioning, how society and the government treats me, what physically happens to my body when injecting hormones, how I wish to be treated, and so on”. 

Helping people better understand

Becoming an open book made a lot of sense to Aske. Who loves to be the one to actually go and do something. He feels he does that by helping to offer a safe space where people can challenge the stereotypes and ask freely.  

“It’s awesome for me to see it happening right in front of my eyes, and to know that I did something nice for everybody else from my community. Because after the 30 minute conversation, I know my readers will talk to their friends and family about what they learned.”

Aske is very aware that not all questions can be answered and that the takeaways from readers are as bountiful for him as they seem to be for them.

“To meet with someone, who actually really wants to listen to what I have to say, and take that in. Some of them ask questions, that I might have never thought about, and that helps me get to know myself better, and also to be completely open in my answers. I always do my best to answer honestly and sometimes the answer I have to give is – I have no idea.” 

A valuable meeting for all involved

According to Aske, the Human Library creates something with value for all involved.

“I just honestly love the whole concept. This really brings people together. I talk to people I would otherwise never have had a conversation with. And I learn so much myself from both my readers, and the other books. I didn’t know much about blindness, deafness, incest, alot of mental disorders, and so on, before I got to meet them in the book depot. I even made friends with a police officer, that’s for sure something I thought would never happen”.

Something healthy about being open

As the years in the book collection add on, Aske remains in active circulation.

“It’s always healthy to challenge yourself, and to willingly learn or unlearn something. It opens up your world to meet different people, or it can be healing to mirror yourself in someone, and learn something about yourself”. 

Aske Ravn is on loan at events hosted by the Human Library book depot in Copenhagen since 2016.

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The seats at the 13 round tables in the conference room at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC are slowly filling up. In the seats are employees from the fund about to become readers of the Human Library, an annual event hosted in partnership with the IMFs Diversity and Inclusion office.

Content sourced from On-Board Book Depot

Most often at Human Library events, the books belong to a community book depot and their content has been verified and they have been trained for the role of an open book. They have been edited for publication, as we call it.

At the IMF, the books are actually staff that have volunteered to become part of an onboard book collection. The work started in 2017 and many books come back to be published again for more conversations. In our world they are brave souls that have valuable knowledge that help enable their co-workers to better understand the diversity in a work place with people from over 140 nations.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover. Everyone has a story.

The courage of books putting themselves out there. Thank you!” – IMF Readers Review 2019

Rewards in being open about our diversity

A book on disability with readers at the IMF Human Library.

One of the books has a hearing impairment and use a hearing aid when attending meetings and other gatherings at work. The disability started in his youth and only got worse over the years. He volunteered to be published to help sensitise his co-workers to his condition and to others like him. This was his first time speaking in such a public manner about his disability.

Another book has found a way to live life undisturbed with a skin condition known as Vitiligo and is opening up to answer the questions that so many have, but only few dared to ask. And it is liberating for her. To have a safe space to debunker the stereotypes and challenge the stigmas. By the end of the day, she was ready to also get published outside of work, to visit schools, libraries and universities to answer questions.

Finding common ground

Other topics on the bookshelf included a survivor of domestic abuse, the refugee, a healer and hidden disability. All of them employees that volunteered time away from their desk to contribute to the inclusion and diversity efforts at the fund. All of them with valuable experiences that we can all learn from, if we want to create a truly inclusive workplace. 

“When our books allow us publish them, they are making knowledge available to co-workers in a framing that helps people find common ground. All parties quickly become aware of this and by far a vast majority jump at the opportunity to know more, to better understand. I mean, who does not want to be understood, at work and in our private life, says founder Ronni Abergel.

The third annual Human Library at the IMF was hosted on September 19th, 2019 and featured nearly 20 different books recruited from staff.

FACTS:

A Human Library is a safe space to have a conversation with a total stranger that has volunteered their experiences and knowledge in order to be an open book for you and answer any questions you may have. Typically the topics relate to groups in the community that are often stigmatized or exposed to negative stereotyping.

Since 2017 the IMFs Diversity and Inclusion Team and the Human Library has worked together on hosting events at the fund. Approximately 400 members of staff have taken part in a Human Library session and the response from readers and books has been overwhelmingly positive.

In 2020 the program is scheduled to repeat at the fund and expand with more partners such as the World Bank Group.

The On-Board Human Library Book Depot is a group of staff that volunteered to be trained and published at internal events hosted for co-workers.

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Over the past three years an increasing number of companies and institutions have invited the Human Library to become part of their diversity and inclusion work.

Most recent Premier Foods in the UK has invited us to publish our books at a series of events for their staff. The series will kick off in St. Albans on Friday the 26th of July and be completed by October 2019.

Each staff to become reader will take part in three readings of very diverse books to help them better understand diversity and create a more inclusive workplace.

Other companies and organisations that are working with the Human Library include Heineken UK, Microsoft India, eBay, the IMF and Smurfit Kappa.

The events in St. Albans are not open to the public.

More information about our work in the corporate sector is available here.

Readers from Smurfit Kappa sharing a book on body modification.

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