Libraries Update – June 2024
Festival of Libraries
Last month the 5 day Festival of Libraries took place with over 100 events happening in libraries across Greater Manchester. 1000s of people visited a huge variety of events and exhibitions. Many of these took place in Manchester Libraries, including the Embassy of Utopia at Central Library, fun days at North City Library, Longsight Library and Forum Library and the 90th birthday Sunday Funday at Central Library. Read more at our Manchester Libraries blog.
Festival of Libraries and Birthday Celebration at Central Library
Central Library staff planned an action packed afternoon of performance and craft activities to celebrate Central Library’s 90th birthday. Central Library themed printed bags, flags and birthday hats were enjoyed by attendees who joined in the celebrations. Our communities joined us to perform amazing traditional dance and music from China, Mexico, Pakistan, Hungary and Africa. We were also joined by musicians from RNCM who treated us to varied performances throughout the afternoon. There was EarSoup delivered by library staff and an Edible Readathon not to mention our amazing face painters.
Festival of Libraries – Avenue Library and Abraham Moss Library
Children from local schools in Blackley and Cheetham Hill visited libraries to celebrate the Festival of Libraries, along with local poet Dom Berry. Activities started off in the morning with Abraham Moss Primary School, the year 3 children were very excited and joined in enthusiastically before they then admitted that they already knew a lot of Dom’s poems and made him feel very special!
Next up was Avenue Library where library staff were joined by two Year 1 classes from E-Act Academy. Everyone said that they loved the poems and insisted that Dom drew a self-portrait for them to prove he had illustrated his own book ‘Make Some Noise!’
Festival of Libraries – Forum library
Forum Library customers and library staff celebrated Festival of Libraries again this year with a fabulous Funday! Various activities and workshops included a wonderful music session with String of Hearts, Fresh Start Smart group offered hand massage, nail art and face painting. Library staff facilitated a range of arts and crafts activities, Lorna from Climate change ran some fun games and quizzes and local artist Mandy Cleveland showed everyone how to make some lovely fox lanterns.
Festival of Libraries – Didsbury Library
As part of our Festival of libraries celebrations, Didsbury Library had the fantastic Playscapes: How to build a Galaxy show, the show is an immersive performance installation that combines dance, motion and visuals. A group of children and their teachers attend from Southern Cross Specialist School, everyone really enjoyed watching the show, it was a spectacular, engaging session with performers and light shows.
After the show attendees participated in a workshop where they had the opportunity to wear one of the motion capture suits, therefore able to learn techniques from the performers and then putting on a mini show themselves. It was wonderful to see the children grow in confidence and absorb themselves into the workshops, the teachers also could not resist and put on a little show wearing the suits.
Empathy Day Live Event 2024
Hundreds of Manchester primary school pupils joined top children’s authors at a special event just ahead of Empathy Day, to learn about Empathy and how to put this skill into practice, as well as the role of books and reading in this. Author E.L.Norry, together with author illustrators Steven Lenton and Tom Percival, joined poet Paul Jenkins to share their books and stories about empathy with pupils from five of the city’s schools.
An event for schools on 5 June at the Stoller Hall was organised in collaboration with EmpathyLab by Read Manchester. The authors also visited Manchester libraries and schools on the days before and after the event to spread the word about reading and empathy to even more children. Read Manchester has gifted Empathy book collections to 8 high schools and 20 primary schools so the reading can continue in schools.
Empathy Day – Abraham Moss Library
To celebrate Empathy Day, we had the fantastic author and illustrator Tom Percival at Abraham Moss Library. Abraham Moss Primary School kindly allowed the use of their theatre so that library staff could accommodate as many children as possible in the session. There were 210 children altogether from Abraham Moss Primary School and Cheetham CofE Academy. Some of the children even got involved in making music with Tom with the use of a mic that turned sound into synthesizers and some beatboxing!
Everything But A Beach – Podcast Launch
‘Everything But A Beach’ is a new podcast which explores Manchester’s hidden history. Chris Osuh, Dean Kirby and Yakub Qureshi recorded their new podcast at the Business & IP Centre Manchester‘s Podcast Studio at Central Library. To celebrate, BIPC Manchester staff extended an open invite to their launch event at the Business & IP Centre!
Chris, Dean and Yakub delivered a fun, entertaining discussion about their podcast, and it was a great chance to celebrate the city’s distinctive history. Attendees ranged from budding podcasters, to history enthusiasts who enjoyed networking, sharing tips, and congratulating the hosts on their new podcast. Listen to the ‘Everything But A Beach’ podcast on PodBean! If you are aware of anyone who would like to access the podcast studio, please email: businessinfo@manchester.gov.uk
Author Visits to Newton Heath, Beswick and North City Libraries
North City Library hosted author Maria Motunrayo Adebisi in June where she talked about her book to a Year 5 class from Lily Lane Primary School. The class were very excited to meet an author (and the excitement was doubled by the fact they had a swimming lesson afterwards!) and took part enthusiastically throughout. Each child was given a colourful glow stick and then Maria went through which gods, goddesses and warriors were represented by each colour and the children decided if they had similar attributes. They were also gifted a glow in the dark bookmark to take home.
Author, Clare Harlow visit Newton Heath Library whilst on a book tour for her debut children’s book ’Tidemagic: The many Faces of Ista Flit.’ Year 4 from St Wilfrid’s thoroughly enjoyed creating their own adventure stories with Clare and listening to an excerpt from the book.
Local author Marie Basting came to Beswick Library where over two sessions she told local school children from CofE School of the Resurrection and St Barnabas all about the Romans including many disgusting facts to make them say ‘ewww.’ Two children then dressed up as characters and with their team behind them faced each other with their own battle cries made up by themselves.
Manchester Histories Festival
From 6 to 9 June Central Library took part in Manchester Histories Festival, a free four-day festival organised by Manchester Histories. The festival presented a packed programme of events, including four new music World Premieres, walk-about performances, family crafts workshops, live music, comedy, and public talks hosted in different venues across the city.
On the last day of the festival, over 50 history and heritage stalls attended Manchester Histories Celebration Day, where hundreds of local people from across Greater Manchester gathered in Manchester Central Library’s Performance Space to showcase their work. For the occasion, Archives+ teamed up with the Museum of Science and Industry for a craft activity inspired by Central Library’s famous souvenir handkerchiefs, gifted to 123,000 school children when the Library opened in 1934. Children and their grown-ups had a go at making their own library-themed handkerchiefs, joined a paper weaving activity, and were invited to take a look into one of our vintage suitcases, which was filled with memorabilia from the Library’s grand opening in 1934 (see image).
The festival was a great opportunity to get our audiences excited about the history of our Library – a history they are an essential part of. We hope this is just the beginning of a long-term collaboration between Central Library and the Museum of Science and Industry.
BSL Storytime at Central Library
Following the success of the BSL festival in and around Central library in April staff were offered the chance to have a BSL signed Storytime during half-term. The session was open to both deaf, and hearing children and families, it was a chance for everyone to learn how to do some sign and also to learn more about deaf culture. There was a signed story and a song that everyone could learn to sign on. From now on library staff will be planning BSL activities on a regular basis.
Italian storytime
A new Italian Storytime at Central Library has been a great success, sessions in June took place for younger children who engaged with stories and songs. Simple yoga poses were included to break the ice at the start of the session. Flash cards were very successful in engaging both children and parents using them along side the stories.
Developing our community at the Generator
The Generator has continued the momentum of building and supporting our business community in June through the hosting of a variety of events, workshops and welcoming new users. As well as hosting our popular monthly Networking evenings, we ran an Open Day where participants were able to experience a day of free co-working and networking. They also had the opportunity to book in a business support drop-in session with Build a Business and Enterprising You business support officers.
We hosted a website drop-in where attendees could learn valuable tips on branding and website design. Following the success of the tax and accounting workshop last month, we hosted an accountancy clinic where participants were able to gain a better understanding of business accounting and reporting. As part of Refugee week, w/c 17 June, one of our team members represented the Generator by attending the United for Ukraine Jobs fair.
Our last workshop in June was a food safety workshop, ran by Business Compliance Support, which helped those in the food industry understand how to be compliant with their food safety requirements.
“I am excited to go to my first networking event at Generator too! I am only one-month in to setting up my business but I have lined up some brilliant leads and I know that’s all because I have had a productive space to work from”. Find out more at: generatormcr.org
