A 'Human Living Library' is a physical or digital space dedicated to humans sharing their lived experiences with other humans. Lived experiences could include protected characteristics, cultural identities and personal attributes. The aim of a human living library is to challenge stereotypes and to mitigate the effects of unconscious bias. It can also better our understanding of diversity in order to help create more inclusive and cohesive communities across cultural, religious, social and ethnic differences.
Human living libraries can be created with a specific group of humans in mind or can be inclusive of all. In the case of Higher Education environments, you may wish to focus on creating a library for just staff or just students, or you may want to include everyone. You'll need to consider the aims of your human library in order to understand who your participants and audience will be.
You may see activities under similar names, such as Living Library or Living Books.
