Living Libraries (or "Human Libraries") are events where patrons can "check out" a real person and hear his or her personal story first-hand. Living Libraries were started in Denmark as a way to fight prejudice, but we see our version as a way for people to get to know their community better and think about sharing their own stories.
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| Assemblywoman Addie Russell (right) participates in Canton's Living Library program. |
The people available for "checkout" were:
-Assemblywoman Addie Russell, for an inside look at life in NY government;
-A martial artist and English teacher who struck up a letter-writing friendship with sci-fi author Ray Bradbury;
-Two Vietnam veterans who fell in love at Walter Reed Army Hospital;
-A wildlife biologist and professional ice carver who's also worked security for B.B. King and Ozzy Osbourne;
-A linguist, author and expert on the local Amish population;
-An agriculture consultant who works in Africa and Asia to help communities build sustainable food sources;
-The
founder of Traditional Arts in Upstate New York (TAUNY), an
organization dedicated to preserving folk arts and traditions in our
region.
On choosing participants:
We had some basic requirements-- the person needed to be interesting, they had to be chatty, and they had to be comfortable talking about themselves in front of total strangers! Carole [Berard], Krista [Briggs] and I met a few times to brainstorm a "long list" of local people who fit that bill (we also got input from the rest of the staff). Then we sort of refined it by approaching them like real books-- looking for a balanced collection that would be interesting for our target audience.
Sometimes we came up with a subject and found a "book" to fit it-- for example, we knew we wanted at least one person connected to Canton history, so we decided to ask Varick Chittenden, founder of Traditional Arts in Upstate NY and Dr. Karen Johnson Weiner, who studies Pennsylvania Dutch and the local Amish communities that speak it. Luckily, they both said yes!
Other times we had someone we HAD to fit in somewhere-- a few of us were already fascinated by patron Frank Palumbo's correspondence with Ray Bradbury, and Alan Leo got on the list when he regaled the staff with a story of being trapped in a car by a pack of hungry hyenas.
Other things we thought about were
whether the person we wanted would be available for a Saturday program,
and how they'd fit with the other people we'd chosen. Since we didn't
know what to expect (and since adult programs usually get low attendance
for us), we wanted people who would "work the room" and talk to each
other.We had some basic requirements-- the person needed to be interesting, they had to be chatty, and they had to be comfortable talking about themselves in front of total strangers! Carole [Berard], Krista [Briggs] and I met a few times to brainstorm a "long list" of local people who fit that bill (we also got input from the rest of the staff). Then we sort of refined it by approaching them like real books-- looking for a balanced collection that would be interesting for our target audience.
Sometimes we came up with a subject and found a "book" to fit it-- for example, we knew we wanted at least one person connected to Canton history, so we decided to ask Varick Chittenden, founder of Traditional Arts in Upstate NY and Dr. Karen Johnson Weiner, who studies Pennsylvania Dutch and the local Amish communities that speak it. Luckily, they both said yes!
Other times we had someone we HAD to fit in somewhere-- a few of us were already fascinated by patron Frank Palumbo's correspondence with Ray Bradbury, and Alan Leo got on the list when he regaled the staff with a story of being trapped in a car by a pack of hungry hyenas.
Advice to other libraries who want to try this program:
Give yourself lots of time (at least a year) and don't try to do it
all on your own. We had a team of three for most of the planning--
Krista did the overall organizing, coordinated with the presenters and
made publicity materials (flyers, brochures, signs etc.); Carole was in
charge of refreshments and did a lot of the work of choosing "books" and
figuring out who would work well together; and I sent press releases
and talked to the newspaper. But we also had a lot of promotion help
from Amanda, who writes our weekly newspaper column, and Val, who worked
the day of the event. I think it would have been tough to do with fewer
people-- unless they could have worked on it full time!
For
resources, the HumanLibrary.org site has a lot of information, and
there are some webinars and workshops out there that we found helpful. 
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