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Human Library Toolkit: Timeline for Planning a Human Library Event

This toolkit has been created by librarians at the Universities of Hull and Huddersfield with support from Academic Libraries North. Its purpose is to provide ideas and resources to help with the planning of Human Library events.

Starting Point

Using the information on the home page decide on what you want to do whether you want to focus on: 

  • An in-person event, an online event or a website, 

  • If you want to have groups speaking to books or a one-to-one setting, 

  • If you want to have a drop-in session or a certain amount of time for each conversation, 

  • If there are any particular identities/topics you would like to focus on in the event. 

Also, consider - what date and time should your event be? For staff, try to work around academic and professional service staff workloads (e.g., lectures, staff events, ongoing training courses, clearing, etc.). For students, try to work around lectures and events (e.g., awareness month/week events, fresher’s weeks, etc.).  

Key Questions

You may want to consider these questions in the preparation/planning of your event: 

  • Did you plan the event with equality, diversity and inclusion in mind? 

  • Does this event benefit anyone? Does this event disadvantage anyone? 

  • Why are you running the event? Who was it designed for and for whom? Did the people who are going to be taking part in the event have any say in the planning or should they? 

  • Are there any helpful tweaks that can be made to make the event more accessible and reduce biases?  

  • Should or could another team in your organisation get involved (e.g., EDI Team, Students Union, Faculties, etc.)? Would this benefit engagement or the overall success of the event? 

These questions can help you understand how the event should be ran and if there are any additional considerations that need to be made. It’s important to allow this event to be a safe, open space for conversation, learning and connecting different people and communities.  

If relevant, write up and present a business case for the event and the benefits/risks, budget, etc. All of this can take approximately 2-4 months depending on your approach and resource. 

Timeframe and Important considerations

List and prioritize the tasks involved in planning and running of the event (though some tasks will overlap), and the dates they are to be completed. Some examples of tasks and timelines are below: 

  • 1-2 months of research, advertisement prep, decision making and advertisement release; estimated timeline; budget allocation.   

  • 1-3 months of advertising. Make sure you capture as many people as possible, think about involving staff and student networks, E-Bulletins, asking managers to share it with their teams, asking lecturers to share it with their students, etc.  

  • 2-3 months for recruiting and training books. Think about which stories are available within your staff and/or student cohort*, make use of personal connections as well as staff and/or student networks and any other ways of communicating with the required groups. The Human Library Organisation can offer training and advice for books although there will be a cost attached. 

*Please note: this may change depending on the groups, communities and individuals available to you and the culture within your organization. The University of Hull already had an online Human Library with staff and student participants, so it was relatively easy to acquire participants. Each volunteer had already shared their story in an interview, they were contacted via email and received all help and info via email. Alternatively, the University of Huddersfield had to seek their books from scratch and had other considerations to make such as worries from the HR department and the safety of the books after the event.  

  • 1-2 months for merch scoping, making and ordering/delivery (can take part of the 2-3 months of book recruitment). You can use merchandise to attract attendees and advertise (i.e., goodies and freebies) and/or make t-shirts for the books so they are easier to see and identify in the space. 

If you plan to record the conversations or the whole event ensure that you discuss and agree this with the books, making sure that they are comfortable with this and sign a consent form/media release to be recorded.  

Important Considerations

Important: Ensure to set aside at least 2 hours for set up on the day. Also, a 30 minutes-1 hour of feedback/catch up with books. The best opportunity to collect feedback from the books would be immediately after the event, however, this can be done within 1-2 weeks after the event. 

Think about the type of questions you are using. Some examples of questions that can be used: 

  • How did you feel about the event? 

  • Did you feel supported by the staff? 

  • Were there any negatives about the event? 

  • What could we do better in the future? 

Adjust these questions to what your community/organization requires.  

Finally, this feedback can be used for a business case after the event, for example, to explain the usefulness of the event and any benefits that the readers and/or books received. These types of events can be utilised as a number of things from training exercises and awareness raising to helping implement new policies and guidance for your organisation. You can also further advertise these results and outcomes internally or externally. For example, it may be useful to make your university leadership team aware of the event and its benefits.