Human Library lends live conversation

By Kevin Gerych
Staff Writer

Everybody has a story to be told, you just haven’t heard it yet. The Human Library aims to tell some of these stories on March 27.

“This is not something new, it’s not something that we came up with,” said Bethany Kennedy, director of access services and one of the organizers of the event. “It’s an international event that actually started in Denmark in 2000, we’re just kind of emulating that and bringing it to WCC.”

The stories featured come from a broad and diverse range of very personal and inspiring topics.

“We have a story from a survivor of the Japanese internment camps here in the United States during World War II,” said Claire Sparklin, a humanities instructor who has played a large role in organizing the event. “We also have stories about dealing with addiction, travelling solo internationally.”

Many of the topics come right from current WCC students and their experiences in their lives.

“I’m a nontraditional college student; I had my daughter at 17,” said Kristie Wilcox, a Human Library participant and WCC student studying in the medical field. “But I pursued and graduated college on time with honors. I’m basically telling people in my situation that they should not give up, that they can do it.”

Being able to hear these stories is quite simple, requires no prior registration and is completely free. The event will be hosted in the Bailey Library on campus.

“You just walk into the library, you’ll get a human library card and you can go to the bookshelf, which has all of the books, their summaries and their schedules and you can select which ‘book’ you want to have a conversation with,” said Kennedy. “A volunteer will match you with the ‘book’ you have selected and sit you down at a table in the library where they will have 15 minutes to have a conversation.”

The impact of the human library in prior years has been positive and long-lasting before it began being held by the Bailey Library.

“I’ve been doing the human library as an assignment in my classes for years now,” said Sparklin. “I’ve had students come back to me years later about how powerful their experience in the human library was. Nobody is really a stranger.”

Comments

comments