WIREDGOV

Arts Council England yesterday announced the 22 projects that will share approximately £55,000 to test automatic library membership for children and young people.

It is hoped these projects, supported by the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, will lead to an increase in children, young people and families using their local libraries, and stimulate more reading for pleasure.

The projects include libraries working with birth registration services to offer library cards at birth, nurseries, schools and school library services to promote library memberships to local children and families. Leisure services will also offer combined library and leisure cards for children and young people.

Exciting new ways to encourage library use

Nicky Morgan, Director of Libraries, Arts Council England, said:

'These projects will test out genuinely exciting, new ways of encouraging children, young people and families to join and access their local libraries.

'Libraries are the very heart of their communities and are centres of knowledge that are available for everyone to use. Through these projects, we hope that children and young people will be encouraged to use their libraries now and in the future, and will develop a real love for learning and a natural curiosity about the world around them.'

Our goals

The automatic library memberships will work towards achieving the Arts Council's goals of ensuring that every child and young person has the opportunity to engage with their library service, and of ensuring that libraries are sustainable and resilient.

Further information

More details of the Arts Council's work with libraries, including the Libraries development initiative and a programme of research and debate entitled Envisioning the library of the future, can be found on our website.