Human Library

Designing a Library of Lived Experience for Mental Health: integrated realist synthesis and experience-based co-design study in UK mental health services

“…Many aimed ‘to bring people together who may not otherwise meet and to also kind of shut down the stereotypes that people have about others’. 33 Events focused on challenging prejudice sought to provide a platform for Books to ‘show the general public they are ‘human’ 31 and challenge superficial views of important aspects of their experiences and identities by breaking down perceived ‘us-them’ divides between Books and Readers. 34 This could occur through recognition of shared experience including emotional difficulties, to which Readers could relate regardless of personal differences: ‘Even women [who don’t] look like me, or identify as the same race as me still go through similar struggles.…”

“…This more nuanced understanding of others’ experiences was for some facilitated by the subtle emotional and behavioural cues present in direct interaction, which augmented the interpersonal connection shared by Books and Readers. 33 36 In this context, the experiences and identities Books represent shift from abstract and disembodied concepts to personified and meaningful human experiences. 37 38 Mental health difficulties are thus reconceptualised from ‘myths to storied realities’, 39 enhancing Readers’ abilities to subsequently understand and empathise with the perspectives of people experiencing similar difficulties.…”

Cruising Queer HCI on the DL: A Literature Review of LGBTQ+ People in HCI

“…This is part of a broader trend we observe of growing attention paid to online political discourse, with LGBTQ+ rights being one of the topics of debate [39,42,111,224]. Likewise, some research mentioned LGBTQ+ rights in the context of fake news [82] or censorship of materials discussing LGBTQ+ identities by librarians [113] or governments [21] on political grounds. These works speak to the ways queer people are seen as immoral and, therefore, silenced by government internet filters [21] and librarians filtering our "sensitive or controversial" book topics from homophobic publics [113].…”

“…Likewise, some research mentioned LGBTQ+ rights in the context of fake news [82] or censorship of materials discussing LGBTQ+ identities by librarians [113] or governments [21] on political grounds. These works speak to the ways queer people are seen as immoral and, therefore, silenced by government internet filters [21] and librarians filtering our "sensitive or controversial" book topics from homophobic publics [113]. We found two papers describing LGBTQ+ Wikipedia articles as controversial [114,134] and another two mentioning LGBTQ+ topics in the context of political ads on Facebook [33,147].…”

Exploring Library Core Competencies: A Text Mining Study of American Library Association’s Job Advertisements From 2006 Through 2017

“…Sindh Province University requires librarians to use Facebook and blogs and believes that the promotion of online media will encourage the library to attract readers, and can answer readers’ related questions online, facilitating two-way communication (Buriro et al, 2018). There are also libraries suggesting that in the context of human libraries and experience sharing, computers should be considered more widely used for collaborative work (Huang et al, 2017). The library sees an urgent need for scientific and technological talent.…”