When we hear the word "library", the first thing that comes to mind is a quiet place with no noisy libraries and huge offices that contain many different offices in various fields such as medicine, philosophy, art, religion, sports, politics and others. But the term "library" no longer stands there, especially with the introduction of the "human library" which relies on people's "borrowing" of their experiences rather than books.
The idea from Denmark, which was developed 19 years ago, began with the "Library of Man" and spread throughout more than 70 countries, including the United States and Britain.
The Human Library was created by Rooney Abergel, his brother Danny and his colleagues Asma Muna and Christopher Erechen. "The human library is like other libraries, but it allows people to borrow people's experience instead of borrowing books," says Rooney Abergele.
"We challenge stereotypes and prejudices in a positive context, where hard questions are accepted and we try to answer them," the library says on its website.
This library allows you to borrow "people" instead of books. As you review a paper about a subject you are interested in, you can examine human books with different and rich experiences.
For example, you can borrow a person who is obese, blind, homeless, refugee, or a schizophrenic to hear his story and ask questions that are in your mind.
This library aims to facilitate conversations and improve understanding between people who do not interact very much with each other in real life, and create a kind of social cohesion. The library now houses a group of people from different cultures, religions and races, and is visited by many people from around the world.
The beautiful idea of this library, is that it requires only a certain place, people see their stories, others are willing to listen.