Neighbourhoods

Hazel Blears borrows from Living Library

Today we ran a Living Library session at the department for Communities and Local Government in London, as an internal event with a stimulating catalogue of 'Books' including 'A Gypsy and Traveller View', 'An Everyday Buddhist', 'Flood Victim from Hull', 'Gay Firefighter', 'Experiencing Domestic Violence' and various others.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is known to be a fan of Living Library and scheduled a visit. Browsing the catalogue, she asked to meet David Stark, who we'd recruited from Crisis. His description read:

I was born and brought up in the East End of London. I was homeless during my formative years and this had a very powerful impact on my life. My discovery of art and poetry stemmed from this experience.

I spoke to David afterwards and he said:

'I was a bit surprised, but it was a nice experience. She comes across as very sincere. We found we had a common interest in poetry.'

Talking about hope

Hope is exactly the kind of psychological resource you probably don't give much thought to if you who don't need it. I've just learned a little about how much it matters to refugees and homeless people. My colleague Linda Constable and I spent some time helping to run a living library session at Crisis in London the other day, and it was an absolute blast.

About a dozen members of the Crisis English Club put themselves forward as 'Books' to talk about their experiences; the 'Borrowers' were mostly Crisis staff and volunteers, gaining insights into how the process might work for the organisation elsewhere.

The pic shows the engaging Kazem, a Lebanese refugee who gave his book title as Homelessness, hopelessness and hope. Another described himself like this:

‘I became an alcoholic with my wife after becoming homeless and destitute. I am very proud because for ten years now I haven’t had a drink.’

We learned something else. When the Books were being briefed by our contact at Crisis, she said she expected them to hold back from talking about the more disturbing and harrowing experiences in their lives. On the contrary: every one of them took the considered opportunity to willingly discuss those central life-disrupting episodes and their lasting effects. Such is the power of this simple device.

Previous posts on Living Library.

More publicity for Living Library

Full article by Saba Salman in today's Guardian Society about our recent living library event in Bournemouth.

I'm particularly pleased because in the original project (report) I'd been trying to ensure that people with visual and hearing difficulties were included as Books to be borrowed. For this latest event, staff at Bournemouth recruited Julie Duffy, who has been blind since her teens. Julie features in Saba's article and in the sound file.

Meanwhile, Linda Constable and I have been asked to be UK representatives for the Living Library movement: more on that in due course.

Photograph: Neil Turner

Living Library at the Awards for Bridging Cultures

The living library project which I ran with Linda Constable earlier this year was shortlisted for the 2008 Awards for Bridging Cultures.

At the ceremony last night we came away with 'highly commended' - the trophy in our category was swept away by the Limeside and Clarkwell Project, a superb initiative which links two contrasting housing estates in Oldham. The whole programme was crammed with inspiring projects celebrating all sorts of diversity and cohesion activities.

Living Library pioneer Dany Abergel joined us from Copenhagen for the day. We got added value from running a 'quick-loan' living library session at the learning event during the day. This took place in the vaults at the RSA in London, with delegates popping down for a quick browse among the seven living books on offer.

On this occasion the choice included a refugee from Eritrea and one from Somalia, a vicar's daughter, someone who has experienced several bereavements, someone who was born overseas of parents from different cultural backgrounds, a refugee project worker, and 'African war-child, prison governor'.

Among the borrowers, Ted Cantle, founder and chair of the Institute for Community Cohesion, already a fan of living library, seen here borrowing our prison governor Tony Amaechi.

Living Library Network.

Local living library report.

Like a light going on

Earlier this year I worked with Linda Constable on a pilot project with four library services in England, using the 'living library' process. Living library, pioneered in Denmark, allows someone to 'borrow' a person for a conversation, to explore their experience or interests and to understand other backgrounds and cultures. The project sought to develop a community development model, taking advantage of the trusted place of libraries in the public realm.

Among the participants was Harry, a World War 2 veteran about 90 years old. He was in his early twenties when he found himself stranded with his brother on the beaches of Dunkirk. One of the people who 'borrowed' Harry for a chat told us how insightful it was to hear him talk about events: 'Like a light going on’.

The project was funded by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and involved Bournemouth, Bradford, Kent and Staffordshire library services. The report is now available here.

Previously: The hands in conversation

'Overheard a conversation'

Informality and conversation are recurring themes of interest to me, and the recent Local Living Library sessions have given plenty of angles for thinking about them.

I'm just going through some of the evaluation material, and came across this response from someone who 'borrowed' a recovering alcholic for a conversation, and with some insight described living library as 'a very good idea to build relationships, to see behind one's prejudices or assumptions.'

The response to the question 'How did you find out about living library?' was:

Overheard a conversation.

The evaluation report, which I'm preparing with my colleague Linda Constable, should be ready late summer.

The hands in conversation

Here's another of those hurried poor quality photos that characterise this blog, and one that reveals a curious connection. I took this yesterday in Bradford Central Library. It shows the not-quite-everyday occurence of a lady demonstrating crochet to Emiel the goth. The cakes and the candle are woollen.

With my colleague Linda Constable I've been developing a variation of the Living Library concept, one which is locally-sensitive and non-confrontational, and helps to build relationships. It's unlikely that someone who is interested in talking about knitting would find a place within the established European tradition of Living Library - it's emphatically about confronting prejudices, but perhaps not that kind of prejudice - but our project encourages local libraries to take their own approaches and recruit their own catalogue of local people.

That's how we came to have Emiel (who's also featured in a promotional clip here on BBC Look North) sitting with a knitter on a sofa while both were waiting to be borrowed for a conversation, and getting absorbed in the arcane mysteries of The Woolly.

He and his two fellow-goths got the bug and one rushed off to buy some crochet hooks. Leaving me fascinated at the part played in this apparently trivial connection by (i) the organisation of the series of events, which set up numerous conversations that otherwise would not have happened, and (ii) the focussed occupation of the hands in conversation.

Of the social capital of a social capitalist

Today I had the privilege to be speaking (at a conference of the Society of Chief Librarians, no less; not an indian in sight) alongside John Field, whose excellent book on social capital is about to be published in its second edition. A privilege, but not an easy act to follow.

John spoke about social capital and I was talking about the Living Library project I've been involved in, and about community engagement. I think between us we offered a healthy serving of social policy and practice ideas from beyond the field. There seemed to be a great deal of support for the notion of a locally-grown, non-confrontational model of Living Library - a model which facilitates and legitimises conversations that would otherwise not happen, building relationships in an organic way.

When I reached for a biz card to offer to John, he laughed and said he didn't have one. The explanation being that he came originally from Northern Ireland where 'everyone knows everyone'. Maybe one doesn't need biz cards for bonding ties, and if you don't need bridging ties I guess you can do without. To my delight, our social networks overlap through our common friendship with Alison Gilchrist: I think it took us five minutes at most to discover this connection.

You're not from round here are you?

The other day we had the first in our modest series of locally-based Living Library sessions.

One highlight was a conversation between a young male teenager and a woman who had been evacuated from London in wartime and had lived in the village for 40 years. She said that she still did not feel like a local.

It's a nice example of just the kind of nuanced, hidden aspect of local relationships that we think the Living Library process can bring to the surface.

Living library: take out a prejudice

Ronni Abergel, one of the originators of the 'living library' idea, is in London next week launching a new guide at this event -

Local Level is currently organising a series of public library-based Living Library events, so we were struck by the slogan 'take out a prejudice'.

It will be interesting to try and find out whether this challenging approach (developed in the context of youth work, I believe) attracts people who might otherwise not be encouraged to explore experiences that are new to them, or whether they might be put off.

Our Living Library events will take place as follows:

Norton Canes Library, Staffordshire

Sat 26 April, 1000-1200; Wed 7 May, 1000-1200 & 1330-1500, Thurs 15 May, 1700-1900.

Bradford Central Library

Wed 14 May, 1500-1900, Thurs 15 May, am, Sat 17 May, am.

Bournemouth Library

Sat 3 May, 1000-1200, Wed 7 May, 1400-1700, Mon 12 May, 1000-1300.

Sevenoaks Library, Kent 

Tues 29 April, pm, Sat 10 May, am, Wed 14th May, am.

Conversation: everyone's talking about it

Yesterday we held what's thought to be the the first practical experience of 'living library' in the UK. The idea of Living Library is that you can get direct access to experience or knowledge by borrowing a person, for a conversation about some aspect of their lives, personality or role.

It was a tentative start - a gathering of interested folk at CILIP (formerly the Library Association) with a presentation by Martin Field from New South Wales about how the scheme has been run at Lismore Library: followed by an experimental practical session in which participants volunteered to be 'books' or 'borrowed' someone. So we had nine or ten books, from the recently bereaved, the new grandparent, a person of faith, a vegetarian, a refugee, a gardener, living in a village in Nigeria, and so on.

There was unanimous satisfaction with the exercise and a lot of discussion about how it fits into efforts to contribute to community cohesion and contemporary calls for a more conversational democracy. There seems no reason why living library could not be run in places other than a public library (although I think being in the public realm will help to make it work); and it could be organised around a specific theme (such as a child health issue or wartime reminiscences) as well as being general. In a way it reminds me of telephone conferences, being a simple but effective communication device for achieving certain ends, celebrated by those who've tried it but curiously not widely adopted.

Seminar about Living Library

The idea of ‘Living Library’ originated in Scandinavia. It's a scheme that gives direct access to someone else’s experience, by allowing people to ‘borrow’ someone who is an expert in their field, has significant experience to share, or is passionate about a hobby.

‘Loans’ take the form of a conversation, and can last for half an hour, a morning or an afternoon.

Living Library has been developed in a number of countries and experience seems to illustrate the contribution that library, museum and archive services can make to community cohesion. I've been working with the Community Services Group of CILIP and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to organise a seminar in London which will share experiences from Australia and Belgium.

Among the questions we hope to explore are:

What ways can be found to link the topic ‘borrowed’ with existing, more permanent, resources?

Should Living Library be mainstreamed?

Is the MLA sector the appropriate place for such initiatives?

Here's the line-up:

Chair: Catherine Max, Head of Policy Development, MLA

Speakers:

Martin Field, Director, Richmond-Tweed Regional Library, New South Wales, Australia

Katleen Van der Straeten, Jeugd Rode Kruis, Belgium

Helen Carpenter, Project Co-ordinator, Welcome To Your Library

Cost: £45 including coffee/tea (CSG members £40).

Blurb and booking form. The pic above is taken from Lismore's Living Library, New South Wales.