Introducing Unity Effect’s Living Library

Imagine yourself in a garden. The sun shines light on you, birds are chirping, and blossoms blooming. You soak it all in, ready for some gardening action: to nurture the soil and plants around you. But as you get stuck in, something feels off – the tools and materials you are using do not actually support you in tending to the garden. Rather, they worsen its condition.

Most of us have experienced something similar in our work. We wish to do well, to create a thriving team environment, and to be intentional and purposeful in a project. Yet the available processes and practices seem to actually hinder more than help.

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The purpose of the Living Library

At Unity Effect, we have been experimenting from day one with what supports us, knowing about the challenges not only to “talk New Work”, but to embody a paradigm of true collaboration.

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This led us to ask the following questions: 

• What are the tools that actually help the garden – our teamwork and organisational culture – to flourish and grow in its own unique way? 
• What are the tools and approaches to address our local and global challenges with curiosity, inviting collective wisdom and giving space to unknown solutions? 
• What are the concepts and practices that can shape how we work in a new way?

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After countless hours of research, facilitation, supporting events, measuring impact and networking, we have now gathered all that we’ve learned and experienced in one place for you: Unity Effect’s Living Library.

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The core intention of the Living Library is to support you in your daily work. The term “living” implies that the resources within it are relevant and up-to-date, and link to your specific tasks, ideas and goals. The term also implies that it’s not only about theoretical knowledge, but the practice of adjusting and using the resources, and bringing them to life through your work.
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It’s also a response to two challenges we observed:

• We can easily be overwhelmed by the amount of information we can access, not knowing what’s (most) relevant in a given situation. 
• Knowing does not automatically mean doing. It’s much more about (joint) practice than about gaining new information.

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At its heart, Unity Effect’s Living Library therefore aims to:

• Qualify information: We use our purpose (leading change from the inside-out) and values to evaluate existing and create new resources.
• Link it to deliberate practice: We host a Community of Practice on Regenerative Evaluation and create collaborative learning spaces (such as in our free online workshops) for peers to exchange on topics and good practices.

As such, we are not attempting to replace Wikipedia or existing knowledge databases. Rather, we have in mind and heart to provide meaningful support for you, and scan, create and share resources that we see fit for that purpose.