Libraries Update – December 2023

Manchester’s One Million Minutes Challenge

Between 30 October and 10 November 2023, Read Manchester and Read for Good joined together to challenge Manchester to read for One Million Minutes! All minutes of reading could be logged, and we encouraged all schools and organisations to take part and record their reading. Hitting the target also meant that Read for Good would donate book boxes to community groups and a day of storytelling for the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.

We didn’t just hit the target, we more than doubled it with 2,002,510 minutes overall! Schools, Sure Start Children’s Centres, libraries, storytime parents, Read Manchester literacy champions, Manchester City of Literature and many more joined in to help us reach the target. Some year 9 pupils at Chorlton High School even decided to do a 24-hour readathon.

Wilbraham Primary School said: ‘It was a really good focus for the children and made them realise just how much reading we all actually do…’

Pride in Ageing – Archives+ 

Volunteers from the Pride in Ageing programme, run by the LGBT Foundation, showed a range of items from the LGBT Collection at the Archives+ pop-up event at Central Library to mark World Aids Day 2023. The Collection highlights work done in Manchester and the North West to raise the profile of the LGBT Foundation and LGBT communities.

Start-Up Huddle

The Manchester Business & IP Centre team held another Start-Up Huddle event for local entrepreneurs to network and help one another soar. Every session features one or two carefully picked start-ups to present their business to attendees, with an opportunity for questions before the mingling commences!

The next Start-Up Huddle takes place on Friday 12th January

National Grid Gasholders Exhibition – Beswick Library

Beswick Library were pleased to host a fascinating launch event and afternoon tea for the National Grid Gasholders from the Bradford Road gasworks. These historic structures, some dating back to 1890s, are currently being demolished and will vanish from the East Manchester skyline soon. Beswick Library partnered with National Grid to hold a celebration of these local icons, showing films about their history and the demolition process. Guests attended from the local community and along with pupils and staff from East Manchester Academy to hear senior manager Nadia Dew and her colleagues talk about the complex dismantling project followed by refreshments and a festive mince pie.

Everyone took home a commemorative gift of a Christmas bauble courtesy of National Grid. Historic artefacts, including actual sections of steelwork from the Saxon Street gasholder, have been donated by National Grid and are currently on display at Beswick Library, alongside an exhibition of contemporary and historic photographs.

Visitors said:

“I had no idea it was going to be so fascinating! I’m so glad I stayed to hear this.”

“Seeing the steelwork pieces was amazing – they really gave you a sense of the scale of the gasholders and how gigantic they were!”

The exhibition will remain until February 2024 after which it will move to Miles Platting Library.

Carbon Literacy Action Week – Chorlton Library

As part of Carbon Literacy Action week, Chorlton library staff delivered a very creative festive craft activity. Attendees made Christmas gift boxes and ornaments by repurposing old book boxes and leftover wooden Summer Reading Challenge medals! It was a brilliant opportunity to engage and raise awareness about climate change, climate footprint and carbon literacy with our families. Biffa, and Climate Change Officer, Lorna joined in by holding a lovely stall for making recycled Christmas cards, and talked about climate change with everyone.

It was a wonderful and well-attended event, a great way to spread the word and learn together, library staff felt they really got people thinking about what they can do towards growing a more sustainable future.

Carbon Literacy Action Week – Longsight Library

Climate Change Officer, Tudor delivered two Climate Fresk workshops with one of our fabulous volunteers, Sue. One of the workshops took place at Powerhouse Library for a group of children, and the other was at Longsight Library for adults. Both were very successful and all participants got stuck in. Tudor commented that the children in particular where really knowledgeable about climate issues. It was a great week for focusing on a range of activities to raise awareness of Climate Change and also support Manchester’s Zero Carbon goals.

Carbon Literacy Action Week – Gorton Library

Gorton Library staff were so pleased to work with the Manchester Metropolitan University’s ‘Voices of the Future’ project team to deliver two ‘Tree of Hope’ sessions for Year 3 classes from St James Primary School. ‘Tree of Hope’ is a story about a young girl who lives in a dessert, when her uncle visits with a tree sapling which the girl plants and cares for. As it grows and develops, other children plant the seeds creating a shady oasis with birds and animals. Dr Samiya Ambreen who led the session inspired the children to interact and get creative by writing and imagining what their planted forest would look like, and the impact it would have.

Carbon Literacy Action Week – Central Library

Manchester Archives and Local Studies dived in to Climate Literacy Action Day 2023 on Monday 4 December with an engaging display of archives and heritage materials for Central Library visitors to look at. As part of a citywide programme of events, archivist Jenny created a fascinating handling table with Manchester archive items relating to environmental action and climate change and was on hand to talk about the historic sources we hold at Manchester Central Library which evidence local environmental concerns around climate change and global warming over the years.

Carbon Literacy Action Week – Withington Library

As Withington village ran its Christmas Light ‘switch on’ event, library staff kept the library open late so that they could join in the celebration and enjoy some Christmas crafts! As it was Carbon Literacy Action week, everyone made Christmas tree ornaments with leftover summer Reading Challenge medals, children glued them together and decorated them with brightly coloured festive embellishment. Attendees loved making the decorations and appreciated the idea of recycling and repurposing items that may have been thrown away.