Checking out The Human Library

While most libraries prefer that readers use their quiet voices, we just visited a library in Copenhagen where talking is actually encouraged.   

Ronni Abergel founded The Human Library (or Menneskebiblioteket) 26 years ago. To be clear, there are no physical books there; the people are called books. “It’s a library where we give out human beings on loan, and they’ll be an open book for you and answer any question you have about the topic that they’re offering,” he said.

All the “books” are volunteers. Now you can’t leave the premises with the person, but they will answer any questions about their subject matter during the free 30-minute sessions.

There are now Human Libraries in more than 80 countries, including six in the United States, with plans for more. Most “readings” take place at public libraries, schools and universities, and on the human library website.

Abergel said, “The most popular books are typically books on mental health. Schizophrenia, bipolar, autism, anxiety, depression – all of these topics are almost global bestsellers.”

My goal in Copenhagen was to check out three “books.”

On schizophrenia

“A lot of people assume that people with schizophrenia are either dangerous or helpless; that is definitely not the case,” said 33-year-old Christian Sarner. He studied quantum physics in college, and was diagnosed with anxiety and schizophrenia 13 years ago. That’s when he came to believe he was always being watched, and wondered if the world he inhabited was fake.

“A thought popped into my head: Maybe I’m fake. I might be a robot, and everything I’ve experienced up until now is just false memories implanted into my head,” he told us. “So, in my psychotic mental state, I reached the conclusion: If I am a robot or a hologram or something, obviously I don’t have blood in my veins; I have oil, wires, something. So, I go to the kitchen and pull out a knife. And it’s worth mentioning at this point, this wasn’t a large dramatic suicidal thing. It was two very measured neat cuts. I even disinfected the knife beforehand! I realized, okay, there’s a bit of blood there, cool. Obviously, I am human and the world around me is fake. Back to that theory.”

Sarner took medication and started therapy, and today is cherishing his family life. “I’m feeling good,” he said.

Abergel explained, “We train every person to be an open book because the methodology is a little unique. This is not about me telling a long story to you; it’s about your curiosity guiding the conversation. What do you want to know the most about my topic?”

The Human Library is supported by private foundations and public donations, and all the “volumes” – those sharing their life stories – are volunteers.

On refugees

Another popular “book” is titled “Refugee.” “You think that person is so different than you, but within half an hour you think, Oh my God, I have a lot in common with that person,” said 37-year-old Noura Bitar, a political scientist from Syria, who came to Denmark with her Danish husband at the age of 20.

At the time she did not speak a word of Danish. That was in March of 2011, when pro-democracy protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad led to a violent government crackdown and civil war.

Bitar told us her treatment as a refugee in Denmark has varied over the years: “For some people, I am ‘the refugee.’ And I think I accepted that. Most of the people, especially in Copenhagen, were open about me, but I also heard a lot about, Eh, you don’t look like the typical refugee.”

What do they mean by that? “I am very obviously confident. I’m proud and I speak English, I speak fluent Danish, [and] I think there’s that stigma like, a refugee should always be sad. I shouldn’t be dressed nicely.”

“So, there’s a stigma about dressing well and speaking well?” I asked.

“And being highly-educated,” she replied.

In Denmark, immigration policies have become more restrictive, and Bitar is still awaiting Danish citizenship. Now, after getting divorced, she looks forward to her second marriage, but still struggles with her traumatic past, including dreams of Syria. “When I first came, I always dreamed that I was a bride walking and there are gunshots in my wedding dress,” she said. “It kind of, like, haunted me that I survived because I lost friends, I lost family members, and I always felt like I have that survival guilt even until today. So my PTSD was always, picture me as somebody who also got shot, even in my wedding dress. So, I don’t know, I’m still struggling – every time I dream about Syria now, am I gonna be sad?”

There are questions that these books will not answer. “Every book has their boundaries,” said Abergel. “If you go beyond the boundaries of what they’re comfortable talking about, they’ll know to say to you, ‘I’m sorry, but those pages have not been published yet.'”

On Greenland

I had never met anyone from Greenland before, until I met human book Viva Olsen, age 55, an indigenous Greenlander who remembers a childhood in nature. “It’s been a very wonderful upbringing,” she told me, “because the first thing you get to do when you’re just an infant is to go out sailing and hunting. We hunt reindeer. We hunt polar bears, birds and fish and seals. Lots of seals.”

She had no trouble moving to Denmark in 2009, as Greenland is a self-governing territory that’s part of Denmark. Today Olsen is an aide to patients in psychiatric units.

I asked Olsen, “Before President Trump expressed his desire to own Greenland, did people there pay any attention, or much attention, to President Trump?”

“No,” she replied. “We’d always seen America as the land of milk and honey, and friendly, whose interest and presence in Greenland was benign.”

Olsen has happy memories, when she was six years old, of American soldiers stationed in her native country: “They were well-loved. Santa Claus would come by chopper, and he would bring us presents. And it was basically the American soldiers who’d chipped in and bought a lot of presents for the kids. That was really sweet.”

Ronni Abergel says they have already reached millions with The Human Library, and just maybe, are changing lives, reflecting the library’s goal to “unjudge” someone. “What happens when I’m not afraid of you, and you have nothing to fear from me, our quality of life goes up,” he said. “All of our life quality could go up if we were more understanding and accepting.

“We don’t have to be best friends, all of us here, but we need to try and understand each other,” Abergel said.

WEB EXCLUSIVE: The Human Library is offering free library cards to 25,000 “Sunday Morning” viewers. Click here to find out how to get yours.

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Story produced by Jay Kernis. Editor: Ed Givnish.