Everyone who walks through the doors of a library - to borrow a book, take a course, learn a new language, find a quiet place to be, or simply work there - already shares the same space, often without ever speaking to one another.

Pull Up a Chair is a recurring gathering, initiated by The Second Thought and designed so that libraries, public and school alike, can eventually facilitate it themselves. Around an object, image or book; sometimes from the library's own collection, sometimes brought in by a participant. People meet in person and talk. Everyone at the table, including the facilitator, takes part as an equal: looking, listening and sharing what they notice, what it reminds them of, and what they wonder about. Along the way, people get to know others they might otherwise never speak to, and pick up a bit of vocabulary and ease in conversation almost without noticing. In a school, that means students (and sometimes parents) meeting across groups and differences long before a debate about "citizenship" ever gets named as such. The exchange also surfaces a quieter question: who is, and isn't yet, represented in the books a library lends out, and what that might mean for what it chooses to collect next.

Bring Pull Up a Chair to your library, public or school, and find out what conversations are waiting to happen around your own shelves.