The Living Library, also known as human library, method, used worldwide on various events, seeks to promote understanding and dialogue between different people and to fight prejudices and discrimination. When you come to visit the Living Library you pick a book that sounds interesting from a catalogue, but instead of a pile of paper you will get to borrow a real person – with a story to tell! You will be able to ask the book whatever questions you have in your mind concerning the topic of the book, but remember to be respectful – do not bend the pages, or spill coffee on them!

Living Libraries are in general about all different sorts of topics. However, in our Workshop, we will limit the topic variety to the “Working Life Section”. So as a book you get to tell about yourself and a topic that is important for you, an event or project you organised, or just giving handy hints for life, e.g. about work-life balance. You are always allowed to leave questions unanswered, or to return to the safety of the bookshelf. Before the library opens we will brief our books, and make sure that they are prepared to be borrowed.

Obviously, there will be no Living Library without books. Therefore, we are hoping that many of you will volunteer for this programme point. Do you have a story to tell? If so, please indicate it at the registration form!

• Do you have a great skill that helps you in your student or working life? If so, how did you get the skill and in which way does it help you? Example title: “My time-management is awesome: I am happy to explain how I structure my day”
• Did you manage to get a fantastic traineeship, a scholarship or made your dream project at university come true? Please tell us about it! Example title: “Himalaya – writing your Master Thesis at 4500m above sea level”
  
• Do you represent some social, political or religious group or a minority? Does this affect your working life? Often we are fast forming our opinions about groups we do not belong to, but are at the same time too shy to ask someone who represents them… Could you help building bridges? Example title: “Being the only indigenous person in our team is (not) a problem” or “I have only one arm, but I can still be a forester!”
• Would you like to share your dream job with us and how you got there? Example title: “I founded a company and love it!”
• We hear self-help books are all the rage! Do you have some awesome method for coping in everyday life, reduce stress or did you manage to establish yoga at your workplace? Example title: “Why juggling is great for your concentration and how to convince your boss about this” or “How I manage to not get crazy if the workload is too high”

Each book can be borrowed for 15 minutes from the readers. Then they will be returned and the readers can chose another book. If you have an idea for a book, but are not sure if it fits, please do not hesitate to contact us (yfpd.tf@ifsa.net).

How do I become a book?

If you are interested to become a book, please fill this form. Similar to the back cover of a book. This will help readers to make a well-informed choice which book to borrow. During the Workshop, you will have a virtual breakout room where people can come and talk to you for 15 minutes. Then the groups change. If you have time and energy, we invite you to stay after the Workshop and continue the Living Library as long as you want to.

How do I become a reader?

Simply register for our Workshop (https://ifsa.net/yfpd#register) and attend that day. You can browse between the book descriptions prior to the event on our website and think which book you would like to borrow. Please understand that it might not be possible to always get the book you want, but we will try our best. We will have at least 4 rounds of book exchanges, so you can read different books for sure.