´óÏó´«Ã½

So I found this link to a story on The Register entitled , which reports that a public library in Malmo has "taken an unusual step to combat peoples' preconceptions about Muslims, homosexuals, gypsies, animals rights activists" by, um, letting library users 'borrow' real people from those groups for a 45-minute chat in the building's café. A spokesman explained the 'Living Library' project in the following way:

"The Living Library project will enable people to come face-to-face with their prejudices in the hopes of altering their preconceived notions. You sometimes hear people's prejudices and you realise that they are just uninformed."

Which, y'know, is very true, isn't it? As disabled people, we can probably appreciate this more than most.

And then Crippled Monkey got to thinking (which is always a bad idea, frankly). What if a similar project was launched here, and disabled people - as a group that still experiences prejudice and is still misunderstood - were involved? Would you agree to be 'lent out' by a library, and spend three-quarters of an hour in a stranger's company in order to enlighten them about disability? And would that be long enough to explain the Social Model?

I'm not sure. I'm really not sure. I mean, obviously if they paid for the coffees and bought me a couple of nice doughnuts, I'd be tempted. Very tempted, in fact. But what if they 'borrowed' me for 50 minutes or an hour? Which one of us would be charged overdue fees when I was returned to the shelves? And (really worried now), would the librarian insist on stamping me on the forehead every time I was lent out?

I'm thinking about this a little too much, aren't I?