Libraries Update – February 2025

Children’s Mental Health Week 3-9 February 2025

During early February we celebrated Children’s Mental Health Week at Central Library with author and child therapist Becky Goddard Hill. The theme for this year was ‘Know Yourself, Grow Yourself’. Every child who attended the event received one of Becky’s books, courtesy of Read Manchester from the ‘365 days’ affirmations’ collection. These books support children’s emotional wellbeing by boosting happiness with encouraging quotes and positive affirmations. The children also enjoyed learning to relax with a mini Tai-Chi session.

Warm Spaces in our Libraries

Libraries continued to be warm spaces this winter, offering free hot drinks from October to 1 March. We visited Longsight Library which is a great example of a Warm Space. Andy Burnham, Gabby Roslin and David Barclay from Warm Welcome Spaces were very impressed by our offer!

Annual Reports for Libraries, and Digital Inclusion

On 4 March, Councillor Hacking took our annual report on libraries to the Communities and Equalities Scrutiny Committee. “I’m so proud about how Manchester City Council supports it’s libraries and the wide range of services offered from libraries that improve the lives of our residents”.

You can view the full Manchester Libraries 2025 report here at our blog. At the same meeting, Councillor Hacking also presented the work that libraries have led on relating to digital inclusion. Also, you can read about the Digital Inclusion Report 2025.

See Myself in Books – Festival & Book Gifting Appeal

Read Manchester’s first ever See Myself in Books Festival is taking place from 17-30 March. The festival builds Read Manchester’s work to promote representation in children’s books. There will be lots of exciting events for schools and families involving diverse authors, including a take-over day at the National Football Museum, a design competition and events in libraries. Find out more about the See Myself in Books Festival at our Manchester Libraries blog.

To accompany the festival, a new book gifting appeal has been launched to help purchase books for two new book collections for primary school children – one focusing on ethnic diversity and one on neurodiversity. If you can, please donate and encourage your friends, family, employers to get involved too at our, Just Giving, See Myself in Books page.

International Mother Language Day at Longsight Library

Longsight Library staff partnered with the Anamika Cultural Group who delivered a lovely Eid Mubarak mehndi hand decorated card workshop, and Dragons Voices ran a wonderful Chinese calligraphy workshop. This year the busiest workshop was with the Save the Children’s Longsight Parent Champions, as they made friendship bracelets with the use of both Arabic and English alphabet beads. Other fantastic workshops were delivered by local artists Nadia and Rizwan from the Longsight Community Art Space, who highlighted their Truck Art exhibition, with truck art and kite designs. More artwork can be found in the library from Emma Martin’s ‘Welcome Words’ sculpture which were created on the day! 

Chinese New Year Celebrations at Central Library

Thousands of people visited Central Library at the start of February to greet the Year of the Snake with us! On the first day we kicked off the celebrations with a series of themed craft workshops led by us and Bowen Education. Attendees made lanterns, snake badges and much more! On the Sunday, we welcomed Bowen Education, Confucius Institute and other community partners for a series of performances that started with Lion Dancers in the morning and carried on with Tai Chi workshops, friendship bracelets making sessions and hanfu shows in traditional Chinese costumes. Chinese New Year was Central Library’s most popular event of the year so far, drawing 4,756 visitors on Sunday only, compared to 4,132 visitors last year.

Faerie Doors at Burnage Library

Burnage library hosted a fantastic art session which was delivered by Small Acts, called ‘Fairies in our Library’. It was a real hands-on, creative activity with the children designing and constructing their faerie doors out of cardboard, then painting and decorating them. The children also wrote a description of the faerie behind the door. The faerie doors are displayed in the library as part of a faerie door trail around Manchester Libraries, so the children will get an opportunity to come back with their families to see their magic creations. It was a great fun activity with lots of glue, paint and cardboard, allowing the children to get very creative and messy.

Business events at the Generator

This month, Generator has been helping members get their businesses online! A workshop dedicated to creating and managing a WordPress website, and another teaching the skills of creating impactful short-form videos for social media, have both given members confidence to increase their online presence, and provided clarity in the often-overwhelming task of setting up a business website!

Our new workshop, ‘Building a Financially Strong and Sustainable Business’, received great feedback from participants. One said, “This was one of the best events I’ve attended” and another was pleased with the “real advice they can easily apply”.

We are looking forward to a new workshop series running next month in partnership with Manchester Social Economy Alliance: ‘From Ideas to Impactful Ventures’. The workshops will cover a range of important topics, from tips for structuring your business model to perfecting your pitch for a range of audiences. Check out our Eventbrite for more details!

The Generator project is funded by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

Full Volume: The Manchester Libraries Podcast

‘Full Volume: The Manchester Libraries Podcast’ takes listeners behind the shelves of our city’s much-loved libraries. Presented by the Central Library’s own Alan Lynch, every month the podcast lifts the lid on a treasure trove of insider tips, exclusive interviews, book reviews, and much more.

Listen to Episode Two on your preferred platform here!

International Mother Language Day at the Forum Library

Forum library staff celebrated International Mother Language Day with an afternoon of arts, crafts and performances. The event took place in the Creative Space, where attendees enjoyed making dream catchers, decorating caddy bins with food names in different languages, and designing tote bags with a positive message in different languages.

Artist Siu Mo Wong made Hong Kong neon style signs, Lydia made word bunting with pipe cleaners and the Afro Tots group made ‘My Family’ pictures. Everyone enjoyed listening to a beautiful performance of a poem in Bangla and English from Ayna Arts. The afternoon ended on a high with an interactive dance and singing performance from the fabulous Afro Tots.

Creative Space at the Forum Library

Forum Library staff are delighted to announce that they have just partnered with Brighter Sounds, who will be curating many exciting projects in their Creative Space over the coming months. Brighter Sounds are synonymous with developing and nurturing talent throughout Manchester, and now they will be doing the same for the youth of Wythenshawe. On 22 March they will be hosting a brand-new live night aimed at young people interested in performing or learning how to produce events. While planning is still underway, the idea is that Brighter Sounds will host workshops during the day, which will be followed by live performances from 6pm. Expect to see Music Evermore students perform on the night.

The Creative Space hosted its’ second play, which was a production called ‘Dark, Beautiful, and Chaste’ written by the evergreen Marie Greenhalgh. This moving piece of theatre was based upon women’s real life stories of childhood trauma. A trauma professional was available on the night for any of the audience to speak with her after the performance. A four week podcasting masterclass has also started, with the excellent Vic Turnbull who runs MIC Media. These workshops have been funded by Build A Business and are catered to small business owners, who can also make the most of the podcast studio! 

International Mother Language Day at Central Library

On Friday 21 February, hundreds of children and families joined us at Central Library for International Mother Language Day. This UNESCO-sponsored annual event is the perfect opportunity to celebrate Manchester’s language diversity. We were joined on the day by the Hungarian, the Romanian and the Czech consulate, Manchester Deaf Centre, Speak Greek, representatives from Lithuanian and Armenian heritage organisations, and many more. The event was closed by a fantastic performance by Colibri Mexican Folkdance, who brought everyone to the dancefloor!

Faerie Doors at Gorton Library

Imaginations were totally let free at Gorton library as local children and their families designed some wonderful faerie doors! Whilst caring for the environment was in mind, they used recycled cardboard, paper, buttons and other fun materials to create their doors. The activity was divided into two parts, the first part was to design their own faerie door, and then they drew fairies, coloured them in, and wrote stories about them! Everybody loved bringing a little bit of magic into their lives with this activity.

Half-term activities at Central Library

School holidays are always busy at Central Library, with lots of families joining in with the varied programme of activities. This year we took part in the Super Duper Family Festival and hosted our regular Saturday Film Club, which attracted 32 children and 29 adults, a Lego Club and a performance of Chrissie and the Skiddle Witch. Highlights included a craft session led by Sissy and our Children’s Team inspired by characters from See Myself in Books festival, and a faerie door making session led by Julia. These half-term craft workshops attracted over 80 children and 80 adults between them.

International Mother Language Day at North City Library

North City Library celebrated International Mother Language Day with a Romanian and English Storytime! Afterwards, attendees enjoyed two different musical workshops run by Intergenerational Music Making (IMM). The first session included a drumming circle where everybody played along to the beat of various songs from round the world. Next up was a session for everyone to learn about various instruments from around the world, along with the opportunity to have a go at playing them! A variety of craft activities also took place, including fun with scratch art mandalas, decorating paper hands with fabric with designs in a number of mother languages – these were then tied together to create a fabulous patchwork display!