May Libraries Update
Blossom Trail – Central Library
For the 2nd year, the Blossom Trail tour took place and started at Castlefield viaduct, and included a stop at Central Library! A group of 30 people from the tour visited the search room to view an amazing selection of flora books from our treasures. A past resident of Manchester currently living in Washington and working for the Library of Congress said they were reminded how special Manchester is and how they plan to move back here. Feedback also included:
“Great choice of books and it’s always a pleasure to visit the collections space. It makes me feel important”.
Central Library Celebrates 90 Years since it’s Grand Opening!
This year, Manchester Central Library celebrates 90 years since its grand opening by King George V on 17 July 1934 – a special event attended by thousands (pictured above). Library staff have planned to mark this historic occasion with activities on Wednesday 17 July and with a cultural extravaganza during Festival of Libraries Week on Sunday 16 June, celebrating the old and the new and the venue’s many highlights and successes over the past 90 years. Read more at our Manchester Libraries blog.
Community Computers – Partnership with Manchester Libraries
Staff from the Manchester Libraries Digital Team recently had the opportunity to provide six laptops to six local parents at Beswick Library as part of the Making Manchester Fairer plan. The laptops were donated by our partners, Community Computers who refurbished these laptops. Community Computers is a non-profit initiative operated by Renewal North who refurbish used devices in order to aid low-income families with access to technology while hallmarking sustainability. These laptops will provide digital support to families to aid in their children’s education journey and to allow for digital participation.
The Digital Team also brought along some of our Digital Champion volunteers, who assisted parents in setting up their devices. These volunteers generously offered their time and expertise in ensuring the parents can confidently use their devices and aid in their child’s educational journey. For a household, having regular access to a device, and a parent with the knowledge and skills to effectively use digital technology, can make a difference in combatting digital disadvantages.
Blue Peter Book Club Launch – Central Library
Blue Peter book club Live took place at Central Library on 18th May. Over 7500 people visited the library on the day. The library was taken over by excited children and a flock of thousands of handmade birds! Each individual bird was created by school children with the artist Emma Martin. Children from across the schools in Manchester and the surrounding areas descended on the library to look at their artwork on display. There were various book characters roaming around the building and even a pirate ship outside with it’s crew of Captain Hook!
Blue Peter presenters helped launch the Blue Peter badge reading trail of Manchester, and authors Joseph Coelho and Eve Ainsworth delivered a session along with a book signing. Local author Tessa Singh provided a story, craft session, and bedtime stories were told by the CBeebies presenters. Everyone enjoyed a special visit from Henry, the Blue Peter dog who was really popular with everyone. As part of the fun, there were crafts linked to the book club books and amazing face painters. Staff from the Museum of Science and Industry also provided a craft linked to their Cotton Connections project. Families stayed for the day to enjoy all that was on offer. It was an amazing action-packed day. Highlights of the event were shown on Blue Peter on Friday 24th May, which is on iPlayer now.
Local schoolchildren explore the Rashford Mural Archives – Central Library
Children from Beaver Road Primary School visited Manchester Archives at Manchester Central Library to view items from the Marcus Rashford mural tributes collection. The Rashford mural was crowd-funded and commissioned by local street art project Withington Walls and painted by artist AkseP19 in 2020. It was created to recognise Marcus Rashford’s efforts to help tackle food poverty during the Covid19 pandemic. In 2021, after the UEFA Euro 2020 final, the mural was vandalised. In the days that followed, local people from Withington and beyond posted messages of support for Rashford on the mural before it was restored. These tributes were later collected and deposited at Manchester Archives, providing a record of this powerful moment of ant-racist community action.
Children were given a brief tour of the library, and then spent some time in the Archives Search Room to learn more about archives. There was the opportunity to handle some of the Marcus Rashford mural tributes and consider their meaning and importance. The children also worked on a short activity based on the tributes before visiting the archive strong rooms and finding out more about the different collections held at the library. Then there was a final group discussion thinking about what stands out about the collection, and how to share the messages from the collection with more people. Our archive and library staff loved sharing the tributes with the children and hope to welcome many more schools from across Manchester to look at this fantastic collection. Staff also hope to produce a digital learning resource based on the collection in the future – watch this space!
Business Support and Events – The Generator
From welcoming new team members to hosting engaging events and growing our business community, April and May have been exciting months for the Generator. As part of the events programme, staff hosted two networking evenings where attendees were able to network and explore potential collaborations in a welcoming and relaxed environment. As this community has grown, the Generator now hosts pre-start and early stage businesses from a variety of industries including tech, consulting, creative, e-commerce, food, wholesale, to name a few! These events received very positive feedback from participants:
“In the next couple of weeks, I’ve got some zoom calls with two [solo-entrepreneurs] that I met through the networking event which you host”
“Utilising the workspace has undoubtedly had a positive impact on my business. The opportunity to work in a centralised location has facilitated seamless meetings and collaborations with my team members. The availability of meeting pods has been particularly beneficial, providing privacy and a distraction-free environment for productive discussions,” one of our users said.
“My first impressions of the Generator were absolutely magnificent, because I went from using noisy and busy coffee shops, with poor Wi-Fi, to the Generator, which was clean and modern and more importantly, professional with great Wi-Fi,” another user said. Find out more at generatormcr.org
Eid Competition – Powerhouse Library
Powerhouse Library ran another successful Eid competition this year with lots of fantastic entries from local children and young people. This year’s competition had three amazing winners! Congratulations to Adam, Khadija, and Asiya! Library staff are already looking forward to seeing all of the new creation next year! Library manager Sylvia has incorporated local community Eid celebrations into the library beautifully with this competition. We love it!
Catholic Family History Collection comes to Manchester Archives – Central Library
Archives+ partner Manchester and Lancashire FHS are privileged to have become the custodians of the records and documents of the Catholic Record Society. This well-respected family history society is one of the main partners in the Archives+ partnership, based at Manchester Central Library. These two societies have for many years worked together to transcribe birth, marriage and burial registers of Catholic churches in Manchester and Salford and make these records available to genealogists.
Following the closure of the Catholic Records Society in 2023, it has been agreed to transfer the records to the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society who will continue their work to transcribe, digitise and make the information accessible to the public. The loss of this historic body of work would have been very significant to family historians across the world so it is excellent news that it will be continue to be available and grow through the efforts of the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society and its dedicated volunteers. You can preview their progress so far via the link below: Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society website.
Business Support and Workshops – Business & IP Centre
The Business and IP Centre at Central Library continues to support businesses by sharing information on business basics, marketing and Intellectual Property, and by providing access to a wealth of free business databases! In combination to the Build a Business project and Enterprise Hub at the Generator, the BIPC’s offers entrepreneurs that step-up the ladder to achieve success.
Residents from across the city and local communities have accessed these services, of which 62% were women and 42% were black, Asian and minority ethnic. In addition to the core programme, there is the offer of 121 support and additional workshops, for example in May, young entrepreneur Samuel Ashadu from Ashadu Photography to deliver a drone photography workshop, detailing all you need to know if you’re about to enter this exciting emerging industry.
Comments from customers this month about their support from us:
Intellectual Property workshop – “Brilliant resource! Content was balanced and inclusive training style. Thank you!!”
121 with Enterprise Officer – “Thank you for the thoughtful email. I’m truly grateful for the resources and guidance. The links to COBRA and Kompass, along with the details about accessing Local Data Online and Experian Market IQ, are incredibly helpful. The podcasting studio and Zero Carbon Manchester resources are exciting prospects for my projects.”
Force of Nature – Longsight Library
Force Of Nature (FoN) at Longsight Library was a glorious event… the sun was out and the music and performance gave us a truly festival vibe. FoN was commissioned and produced by Community Arts Northwest to bring global climate conversations to a local level. Sarah Yaseen worked with the fantastic Bangladeshi Better We women on the creative writing of stories and memories that they then performed at the event.
Better We participant:
“This was my first time in front of the microphone – I have never had this experience before. I was super nervous then after a few minutes I was fine! Full credit to Sarah for building our confidence and getting us to stand in front of the mic.”
The Force of Nature song warriors, Sarah Yaseen, Emanuela Yogolelo and Meduulla alongside their 5 strong band performed an amazing set of music, song and spoken word that reflect the global inequities and concerns around climate emergency.
Everyone who attended had the opportunity to connect with local climate organisations. To top off the afternoon attendees were enjoyed a wonderful finger food banquet by the Women’s Voices catering team.
Community Arts – North City Library
On Saturday 4 May, library staff hosted a wonderful music event at North City Library with Community Arts North West. The performance started with a local community group Obado who had worked with artists to create some songs of their own. Their enthusiasm radiated from each one of them and they took turns to take the lead during each song.
The band then took to the floor led by Sarah Yaseen, Emmanuela Yogolelo and Meduulla where they performed some powerful songs to the captivated audience. After these performances there were family crafts to take part in, information stands and plenty of cake and refreshments to enjoy!
Manchester BSL Festival – Central Library
Central Library staff were very excited work with the Manchester Deaf Centre, the British Deaf History Society and Manchester University to take part in the Manchester BSL fest. As part of the festival a small exhibition showcasing some of the historic equipment used in deaf culture was available for everyone to see. Library staff received some really useful training on deaf awareness which is invaluable for front line staff. There were 2 signed story times which were included as part of our regular story sessions which was delivered by a deaf storyteller and a BSL interpreter.
A BSL training session was offered to our staff and other local organisations which was also delivered by a deaf trainer and a BSL interpreter. Everyone who attended left feeling confident of finger spelling sign and also gained an understanding of key phrases for communication. Library staff also hosted a reception for people from, and working with the deaf community to showcase some developments in technology from Sign Live and also there was a workshop around inclusion and how someone from the deaf community can feel isolated.
Stephen Lawrence Day – Hulme Library
Children and their families across libraries worked with artist Tina Ramos Ekongo creating banners as part of Stephen Lawrence Day. Tina introduced children and young people collaging techniques to make their commemorative banners using beautiful fabrics and images of Stephen. Above is an example of a banner created by some children at Hulme Library.
Earth Day activities across Manchester Libraries
Earth Day was celebrated across Manchester Libraries in the week commencing 20 April. Children and families across Manchester got involved in simple activities such as making seed bombs, whilst discussing the importance of protecting our world. Library staff talked about the importance of providing pollen, through the growing of wildflowers, for super pollinators – Bees. Children loved the opportunity to get their hands into a bowl of compost and mix with seeds, flour and water! Attendees left with their seed-bombs and were instructed to either plant in their garden, back yard or to find a little bit of waste ground that they could throw their seed bomb onto. We like to think that Manchester will be a little greener this year with explosions of colour!!
Earth Day activity – Didsbury library
To promote and celebrate Earth Day, library staff ran a family event at Didsbury Library, as the theme for this year’s Earth Day was Planet vs. Plastics. Attendees designed and decorated tote bags and spoke about the importance of not using plastic bags especially single use bags. It was a lovely and busy event with the children and some adults making some wonderful bags to take home, the children were very knowledgeable and interested in being green and doing what they could to save the planet.
Author visit – Withington Library
Withington library staff had the pleasure welcoming author Marie Basting to deliver some fun activities based on her book, My Family and other Romans. Year 5 children and their teachers from Old Moat Primary School expressed that they found the activities educational, and fun! There was lot’s of laughter and surprise when Marie shared information on certain parts of Roman which they found very interesting, and enabled them to do very well at the quiz to test their new knowledge!
HAF Events – Newton Heath and Abraham Moss Library
Over the Easter holidays, HAF session took place at Newton Heath and Abraham Moss library, and were partnered with the leisure centre. Children started the day by taking part in swimming and sports sessions at the leisure centre. After lunch, they took part in a variety of activities provided arranged by library staff such as skateboarding, beatboxing, doodle dancing and an exciting opportunity to learn all about owls where they even had the chance to hold one! Crafty HAF sessions took place at both libraries where the children made their own seed bombs, bug hotels and screen-printed t-shirts and bags to take home with them. North area libraries also ran some extra school holiday crafts during the second week of the holidays for any children who were bored and wanted to get messy!
