An African proverb says that an old man who dies is a library that burns. This is a bit the principle that guides the concept of human libraries, which comes to us from Denmark, through which we can “borrow” people, or rather meet them, as we borrow a book.
The story begins miles from here, in Copenhagen, at the turn of the 2000s. Ronni Abergel, whose friend was attacked with a knife in a bar in the city, organizes the first human library, intended to combat violence, as part of a rock concert. The idea is to give people the opportunity to come into contact with people they don’t otherwise have access to, and even against whom they are prejudiced, whether it’s bodybuilders, police officers, refugees or prostitutes. These people, considered “human books”, agree to answer the questions of each reader, member of the public, who borrows them individually for around twenty minutes.
Unexpected encounters
The idea of the human library was born with the slogan: “You don’t judge a book by its cover. » Since then, the human library has grown and spread to more than 80 countries. In Quebec, libraries, but also organizations of all kinds, use it to allow people from all backgrounds, with the most varied experiences, to meet.
In the west of the island of Montreal, the Pierrefonds library has been doing this for two years. On the day of our visit, it hosted “living books” presented by the Omega day center, which works with people suffering from mental health problems. On a table at the entrance, a display offers the available books. On the covers, smiling faces: Nick was diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar disorder, Myrna had postpartum depression around the birth of her first child, then was diagnosed with severe depression.
At the corner of a table, Dany, 64, presented as schizophrenic, waits for his readers while scribbling musical notes in a notebook. These notes, “it’s music that I hear in my head,” he says, since the end of high school. After being cacophonous for decades, this music gradually allowed itself to be tamed. Today he makes songs about it. Omnipresent in his life, music was both his passion and his torment. “My father and mother were opera singers,” he says. “In my head, I didn’t hear words in English or French, I heard notes. »
At primary school, however, Dany had very good results. “I had the best academic results in Quebec,” he says. It was at the end of high school that his life became more difficult, when he had to take care of his younger brothers. “I was really confused,” he says. My two younger brothers were doing drugs, and I was trying to imagine what was going through their heads. I didn’t want to take it, I wanted to obey my parents. I was really very obedient. I had to take care of the well-being of my little brothers so that they didn’t do bad things. » Then, gradually, what he imagines in his head becomes reality for him. “Everything I had imagined became real for me. I didn’t want to do drugs, but I wanted to imagine what a drug trip was like. That’s what made me sick. » His first episode of schizophrenia took him to the Albert-Prévost hospital at 15 years old.
From then on, he played the guitar and only dreamed of music and shows. “I wanted to be Beethoven at 5, one of the Beatles at 12 and Frank Zappa at 15.” His brothers accompany him for a time, before making their own lives. “I found myself without an orchestra,” he says. However, he meets his wife, a seamstress with whom he lives today, who takes care of the couple’s finances. “We managed not to have children. We didn’t want to have lots of little schizophrenics everywhere,” he says. He himself went from job to job, punctuated by hospital stays, until a final crisis, in 2005, led him to withdraw. “I don’t know if I made a mistake, but at that time I was really afraid to continue because it didn’t work in my head anymore. » Since then, he has been attending the Omega center every day. His medication helps him control his concentration and nervousness. “Without that, I couldn’t do anything. » The sounds in his head finally let themselves be tamed. “When I was young, I heard noise,” he said. Now I hear real melodies. »
At the Pierrefonds library, several people who come to see a living book suffer from mental health problems themselves or someone close to them suffers from them. The encounter allows them to come to grips with their own reality through that of others.
Breaking the isolation
Excited by the concept of human libraries, Monique Arsenault, assistant librarian at the establishment, made it her mission to spread this practice. “When I heard about this, the human library, I was immediately extremely interested,” she said. Because, nowadays, we are so isolated, we are so much in front of our screens, we are no longer among humans to share. »
Steven High is a historian specializing in oral tradition and professor at Concordia University. Human libraries, he says, fill a human need for connection in an age where, even though it is infinite, the Web often confines us to our groups of peers. “Coming into contact with an individual makes it difficult to generalize about certain groups,” he admits. He cites as an example the social divide observed in the United States, where entire groups oppose each other without understanding each other. Furthermore, he notes, we must also look at “who is chosen as a book for the human library. Do we only choose people who have consensus? “. In oral history, for example, “we tend to do interviews with victims of the Holocaust, but not with those responsible,” he says.
The advantage of the human library is also to allow readers to approach someone “beyond suffering,” he says. Elizabeth Hunt, who specializes in citizen participation and stimulating dialogue, supported the Pierrefonds library in her approach. She also coordinated Concordia University’s “University Differently” programs, which take place in the city’s cafés. “For me, the human library is an opportunity to connect people, so that there is a conversation. That’s what I find really interesting. »
