Halton Borough Council has seen a 24 per cent increase in people borrowing books, ebooks and eaudio over the last year.
There are now 25k active members of the library, up from 11k in the previous year with 360k issues, up from 290k in 2016-17.
Halton Borough Council’s Executive Board Member for Libraries, Cllr Phil Harris, said: “This is great news. It shows our libraries are as relevant as ever. This rise is due to our online services expanding and fiction continuing to be as popular as ever.
“Our libraries are pro-active and a glance at social media will show you the events staff plan on a daily basis to get people interested in reading.”
Dozens of budding writers recently attended the launch of an anthology of short stories written by new writers at Halton Lea Library.
The anthology was the result of the Write Time, Write Place creative writing course for beginners, which ran, during early 2018, in four Halton Borough Council local libraries: Widnes, Ditton, Runcorn and Halton Lea.
Fifty-eight people attended the eight-week course and took part in workshops looking at topics such as setting the scene, building a character, using dialogue and designing a plot with the outcome to write their own short story.
This year’s Summer Reading Challenge Bonkers Beano Bonanza is today at Halton Lea Library (Wednesday) and tomorrow (Thursday) at Widnes Library
Beano themed bonanza will delight and amaze all children. Lots of fun games, crafts and activities based upon your favourite Beano characters.
This events will be followed by our weekly summer lunch club. All children attending the morning’s event will get a free pack lunch to eat in the library
See https://library.haltonbc.info/ or search for #Haltonreads on social media for more information.
*The large leap in the’ active users’ is due to changes in the way we record active users.
CIPFA – figures https://cipfastats.net/cipfastats/
PICS ATTACHED