Abstract
The idea that losing oneself in a library book is a good refuge from the cares of the world seems very dated. That is what people used to do in the days before television and the Internet became so (almost) universally available. Surely no one reads books these days, except on an electronic device, and who goes to a library for books anyway? The answer is that of course the balance between reading print books that one owns or has borrowed, and reading electronic text downloaded from the Internet has shifted drastically in favour of the modern access modes. But despite that, the virtues of the book, however you define ‘book’, include its great therapeutic potential. As Croatian librarians observed during the Yugoslav civil war of the early 1990s, reading and visiting libraries becomes much more popular in times of conflict and social dislocation. It is all very well observing the phenomenon, but what can librarians, teachers and social workers do to deliver the benefits of reading to communities under the most extreme of stresses?
A pilot project designed to serve the Syrian refugees who now almost equal the number of native Lebanese within the country’s borders provides some clues. In 2013 IBBY Lebanon applied to the Lebanese authorities to launch a bibliotherapy programme in two schools with large numbers of Syrian refugee children. Teachers were trained to provide a service and began with one hundred children who attended for four hours each Saturday. Training the teachers was crucial because Lebanese schools, as is universally the case in the education systems of the region, are designed to deliver instruction to children based on the authority of the teachers. Because any form of therapy has to be responsive to individual needs, teachers are effectively required to undertake a fundamental shift in attitude and technique. The horrors that have been experienced or witnessed by the children have influenced their behaviour, with bitterness and aggression characterising much of their response. Offering alternatives to this is not any easy assignment. The teachers are encouraged first of all to listen to what the children say and then as part of their response to offer them books which provide a different view on the world. The project leaders hope that reading about the ways in which fictional characters cope with difficulties of various kinds has the potential to encourage the children to consider their own situation in fresh ways. They also hope that exposure to models of behaviour that include good manners and consideration is capable of inspiring the young readers. Commentators on the project report that children are responding well and they are far from resenting that their Saturdays are given over to even more academic activity.
The Lebanese project is based on principles developed over time by the international community of librarians. Ever since the Second World War, bibliotherapy has been used as a means to heal the mental wounds of veterans and ravaged populations. There is a substantial literature and a body of practice, much of it concerned with the cooperation between mental health services and libraries. It largely concerns itself with the creation of structured reading plans for individuals and the provision of book discussion facilities for groups. This is all well and good, but in urgent cases such as the Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and other neighbouring countries, much of it is too structured and elaborate. Librarians and teachers should not allow themselves to be discouraged by their inability to deliver everything that the literature might lead them to think they should. Basically reading, as a gentle, absorbing activity preferably conducted in a positive environment has therapeutic values, whether or not the book that the reader chooses is directly relevant and instructive. In essence, books are good for you, and the project is proving that a nice read quite simply helps.