Human Libraries promote tolerance, celebrate differences, and encourage understanding of people who come from varied cultural or lifestyle backgrounds. The RPL believes strongly in diversity and community, two values that Human Library lifts up by helping people make connections with individuals they would not otherwise meet in their daily lives. The conversations between the human "books" and the "readers" create a personal connection which results in a broader world view for the participants. The video link below created by our university partner describes many of the challenges faced by the books and how participating in this event helps overcome bias and discrimination.

Human Library helped create a collaborative partnership between the public library and local university, which resulted in a project team with broad connections into the Rochester community. These connections helped develop a catalog of human books with wide appeal. The books offered included: Fear Cannot Bind Us - Growing up in South Africa under Apartheid; Three Sides of Hunger; Homeless, Hungry & Addicted; and A Journey Through HIV. The variety of books offered addressed several of the cultural and civic issues facing Rochester, such as poverty, race, and gender discrimination.

More than 100 readers borrowed 12 books for 30 minutes over the course of several hours. Readers were surveyed as they exited, and 100% claimed they had a new or better understanding of the issues faced by the books they had borrowed. Several people indicated that they had let go of fear and judgement during their sessions with the books. Logistics on checking people in and out had to be reassessed after the first Human Library in order to accommodate the number of borrowers who wanted to participate. The second Human Library held later in 2014 included several sites at libraries throughout the Rochester region, making the program more accessible to a larger number of people.