Human books to be available at St. Peter Public Library

Renee Berg, The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
·3 min read

Sep. 15—ST. PETER — Ever have a question you wanted to ask someone but feared it was too personal?

The St. Peter Public Library has the event for you. From 10 a.m. to noon Sept. 24, the library will host a Human Library, which allows the public to "read" human books. Volunteer human books share their lived experience of racism, discrimination, stigma and marginalization.

Library patrons and community members can sit down face-to-face with a human book to have a conversation in a safe space, said Brenda McHugh, St. Peter Library supervisor.

The experience is meant to provide a learning and understanding of issues that are often misunderstood or stigmatized by society, such as addiction, homelessness, mental illness and immigration. At the library event, there will be seven human books.

It's the library's first time hosting such a program, which is offered through a partnership with the Human Library Organization in Copenhagen, Denmark.

"We're not sure what to expect, since this is the first time we've done anything like this," McHugh said. "We're hopeful we'll have a good crowd, but we're not sure what to expect.

"We're creating a safe space for people to talk with each other about personal experiences they may have," she said. "And each of the human books has a story to share. We hope it develops a broader understanding of what it means to be human in this world and in this community."

The Rochester Public Library is in its sixth year of hosting human libraries. The Rochester library partners with the town's Diversity Council to offer human libraries quarterly.

The Rochester human libraries are hosted both at the city's public library and at various community pop-up locations, said Kim Edson, the library's head of reader services.

"It's meant to be one-on-one conversations with the books," Edson said. "We often have more people interested so sometimes we do two people to one book."

The Rochester library staff has 30 "books" to call upon for their human libraries, though not all of them are available at every single event.

"It's so wonderful because it gives people the opportunity to ask things they always had on their mind but never had the opportunity to learn about," Edson said. "It's also really transformative to hear a person's lived experience. Sometimes people don't think about what it's like to have a disability and what it means to navigate the world. It's a really open process."

Human library visitors get to walk in another person's shoes for 20 minutes and hear things from a point of view they may not have otherwise considered, they said. "What I really appreciate about it is the genuine human connections being made," Edson said. "And sometimes in situations where you don't think they would because different folks are coming together."

"We have found these to be very successful," Edson said, "in helping to break down barriers or at least introduce the concept of bias and micro-aggressions. It's meant as a conversation. We have had a very good response to our human library programs."

When it comes to the St. Peter Public Library's human library event, Leticia Snow, assistant library supervisor, said she hopes attendees are "able to see past any bias they have toward individuals who are different from them and can develop empathy for the struggles that often come from stigma and shame.

"This experience is meant to be a shared conversation and not a presentation," Snow said. "The stories will come directly from the volunteer books and are not intended to sway readers, but rather to enlighten them."