Abstract:
Background: Human Library (HL) is the same traditional library but the only difference is
reading human books by listening to someone else's story. Listening and reading have become
a primitive practice in the socio-cultural behaviour among university community due to the
busy schedule, change of lifestyle, and especially global COVID pandemic. HL contributes to
overcome this gap by creating an open platform for diversified social and ethnical groups to
challenge prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination; and as a way to learn, educate, and change
attitudes; to encourage reading; to express and share own ideas, stories, and experiences and
knowledge; and to establish intellectual freedom among the university community. Thus,
execution as an interactive learning platform, will be an added value to the university system
in Sri Lanka. Therefore, this research is at the initial stage and expect valuable comments to
carry out the future research successfully.
Objectives: (1) Initiating physically available human library program, (2) Initiating virtually
available human library program, (3) Creating a digital human library archive project, (4)
Managing the HL through an online reservation system.
Methods: This study will utilize Mix methods. Sample of 370 students and 278 academic staff
selected through stratified sampling technique will answer the questionnaires. The unstructured
interviews with the academic staff of the library will collect qualitative data.
Conclusion: HL concept will be implemented focusing on the 1st dimension of Human Library
University system of Sri Lanka. By selecting University of Kelaniya to implement this HL
concept as a new service to the traditional library scenario, this study expects to enhance the
interactive learning process, knowledge sharing and research culture using process
management theory implication
