Report: First Human Library in Serbia.

On August 12th the volunteers from the organisation Youth Serbia staged an outdoor stand alone Human Library or Ziva Biblioteka as they call it in Serbian. The event took place at the beautiful Lake Ada and was part of the International Youth Day. The event was the first of its kind in Serbia but not the last says the new Human Library organisers in Belgrade.

Great interest from the public.

The 17 living books and four librarians had their hands full most of the day. According to the two organisers present the opening hours from 3-8 pm was not enough time to accomodate the requests for books. More than fifty readers took out a book for a session and among them was a blind man seeking his answers.

Happy books and readers. 

According to the evaluations from the books everyone enjoyed their roles and most of them where quite eager to be a living book again. All the books on loan where borrowed except one. The readers that took the time to give feedback about their experience where also very positive and proposed many new book titles that they would like to read in future Living Libraries.

Organisers will carry on.

The positive outcomes and great response from readers and books alike have inspired the Youth Serbia crew and coordinator Tatjana Antic says: "After this positive experience we will surely carry on with more Human Library events in the future". The Youth Serbia organisation had originally planned for a Human Library at the EXIT Festival, however this plan collapsed and instead the International Youth Day was chosen for the first event.

Journalists on the spot again.

The local and national press was very interested in telling the story of the Human Library event. One of the more popular TV stations in Serbia is the TV B92. Their journalists produced a nice report on the event and several newspapers interviewed books and readers about their experience. Visit the GALLERY section to see more photos from the event. The TV report is available from a link below in serbian (starts at 46 mins).