Human "books" can be checked out of the library!
In a unique & creative response by by a group of young people in Copenhagen, Denmark, in the 1990s after one of their friends was stabbed during a night out, “Living Libraries” have been created to bring together people of different backgrounds and ideologies. And now the Living Library concept has arrived at the Santa Monica Library!
This Saturday you can “check out,” for up to a half-hour, all sorts of people you might know little about. Like a Buddhist, a vegan, a nudist (for better or worse, the nudist will be clothed at this event), formerly homeless “living books,” a feminist, a fat activist, a celebrity publicist, a Oaxacan-American and a bunch more. Like a library’s usual holdings, the “living books” cover a wildly diverse range of subjects and ideas.
Swing on by, check out a “living book,” and peruse it for your allotted half-hour. Like any book, it promises to open your mind to new ideas.
h/t to Markland for pointing this out to me.
[Note: I can't find this event in the library's web site. It may be worth a call to make sure you're heading to the right library.]
Related posts:
What are the fines if I return my human book late? And can they be crammed into the book drop after hours?
Not to bite the hands that fed me Black Kids tickets (thanks again!!), I think the event was just this past Saturday. The MSNBC story is dated October 17; the Living Library website states that the Santa Monica event happened on the 18th and was a wild success. Sucks, sounded really interesting. The website did say that they were definitely thinking of having another event in the fut
Oh balls. That’s too bad. Well, maybe they’ll do it again somewhere in the SoCal area soon. I really think that LA is an ideal place to do this, as hyperpolyglotic (not a word, but should be) a place as we are.
A formerly homeless, vegan Buddhist nudist? I think I dated that guy once.
Yeah, there was a brief mention of this on KCRW last Friday.
Here’s an article from Library Journal about it:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=ca6606885
And a post from a local librarian about it:
http://lavidabiblioteca.blogspot.com/2008/10/living-library.html