Utah State
University’s Merrill-Cazier Library will host its third Human Library
on Wednesday.
At the library, instead of
checking out books, USU students will have the opportunity to "check
out" a person to learn about their life.
The Human Library project
was started in 2000 in Denmark as part of a campaign to stop
prejudice and violence.
Anne Hedrich, a
librarian and professor at USU, organized the university's first
Human Library in January 2012. Since then, the university has held one Human
Library per semester.
This week’s library differs
from the previous two in that it has a theme of spiritual pathways.
Hedrich plans on having
between 15 and 20 volunteers available to be “checked out.” These
individuals have been given titles to describe their spiritual beliefs. Some of
these titles are, “Finding a Buddhist Path in Logan Utah,” “Letting Go of
Certainty: Mormon to Atheist” and “Unitarian Universalists: Don't They Believe
Anything and Everything?”
Angela Neff, a coordinator
for the event, said she believes this theme will be beneficial for
students living in Logan, since a large percentage of the population are
members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I think this is a good
experience because in Logan many students don’t have very much exposure to
other faiths or ideas of spirituality,” Neff said.
USU student Kilby
Jensen said he participated in the last Human Library event and he enjoyed
hearing from people with diverse backgrounds.
“I talked to a guy who was
raised Mormon but turned pagan,” Jensen said. “I thought he was a really
interesting person to talk to. There was a big difference between the two
religions and his story was pretty cool.”
Jensen also said it’s fun to
hear these stories because they are not always typical in Logan.
Neff said one of the goals
of the Human Library is to promote understanding of different people and
different cultures and one way to do that is to get people talking.
“Our goal is to promote
dialogue between people who don’t normally have conversations,” Neff said.
Kyle Heywood, Mackenzie Rogers, Madison Takos
and Katie Feinauer contributed to this article.
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