Human Library: Sharing Tacit Knowledge Through Human Books

Abstract

Human beings are influenced by their surroundings in many ways. The basic influence is of one human on the other. The Human Library was build to have a positive conversation that can challenge stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue. This dialogue gives rise to several questions which are answered in the process of conversation to get satisfactory results to the reader. It is a place where real people take form of books and are given on loan to readers. A human who is having experience in any aspect of livelihood, who can listen and create conversation to satisfy a reader, can become a human book. The knowledge that a human book has is the tacit knowledge which is embedded in the minds of people. Human library aims to transfer this tacit knowledge from one reader to another for community enhancement on a larger perspective. On this conceptual note the paper aims to find the origin and growth of a human library, how it has been positively accepted in India, its advantages and disadvantages, libraries role in popularising this new novel idea and finally the different directions that a human library may take in future.
Keywords: Human Library, Human book, tacit knowledge, experience sharing

Cite this Article
Rane, V. Human Library: Sharing tacit knowledge through human books. Journal of Advancements in Library Sciences. 2019; 6(Special Issue 1): 378s–381s.