The Ashtabula County District Library is offering patrons the chance to interact with and learn from what they’re calling “human books.”
Human books are people from all walks of life, including a decorated World War II veteran, a tattoo artist, someone who identifies as bisexual, and someone living with autism. Participants can “check out” a human book for a thought-provoking one-on-one conversation.
The library’s reference coordinator, Doug Anderson, hopes this project will encourage open dialogue and understanding in the community, although he says the event was not directly inspired by this year’s divisive presidential election.
“I hope that it can be an antidote to division within our society. Absolutely. We did not have the election in mind when we decided that we wanted to participate in this project. It’s an international initiative, and it’s something I had read about some time ago and was hoping we would be able to do here.”
Ashtabula’s Human Library event will take place on Saturday, Oct. 15th.