Wirral Libraries Book Fest - April 7th

Riverside Writers started off the Wirral Book Fest with a session called "Words from wordsmiths" - an entertaining evening of great writing.

Click on photos to view LARGE!

Wirral Bookfest Events at West Kirby Library

Monday 7th April: 7-9pm Words from Wordsmiths: Horror, humour and beauty—diverse readings of original fiction by members of Riverside Writers.

Tuesday 8th April: 10am-12noon Have your heard a good book lately?
Publishers W.H. Howes interactive display and demo of the talking book from cassettes to ‘Playaways’ - pre loaded digital books. Ideal for visually impaired book lovers.

Tuesday 8th April: 2-3.30pm The best words—John Siddique and Wirral’s Young Poet Laureate. Acclaimed poet John Siddique shares his favourite poems and some of his own gems. Supported by Wirral’s Young Poet Laureate, Holly Green.

All events are FREE.

Click HERE for a full programme of Wirral-wide BookFest Events.

Library Elf

Wirral Libraries - Library Elf Would you like to be reminded when your library books are due back?
We know our customers lead busy lives and sometimes it is difficult to keep track of when library books and due back. With this in mind we have discovered Library Elf - an excellent free service that will send you emails reminding you return or renew your books before the date they are actually due back. With Library Elf, you can:

Receive email notices of items before they become due
View the due dates of
various items in a calendar format
Be notified of reservations as they become available
Consolidate your library accounts or those of your entire family
..and much more!

Library Elf - How does it work?

Library Elf is a third party web-based service which helps library users keep track of their loans and hopefully avoid them becoming overdue. When you sign up for the free service, you can tell Elf to send you email reminders before the items you have on loan reach their due date, or when they actually hit the date. It’s up to you how many reminders you receive and how far in advance of the due date they should start arriving.

Sign up for Library Elf - click HERE to go to the Library Elf website OR
go to Wirral Libraries website and scroll down to the Library Elf logo and follow the “Sign Up” link from the home page and fill in the details required. You will find Wirral shown in the “List of Libraries” under the “International” heading among the UK listings.
NOTE: When entering your library card number, LEAVE OFF the initial 'B' and just enter the last eight digits.

Disclaimer Please note: Library Elf is a third party service which is independently run and not affiliated in any way with Wirral Libraries or any other library service. Wirral Libraries makes no guarantee about the nature, efficiency or availability of Library Elf and we cannot be held responsible for any failings of the service. We describe the service above in good faith as an option, which is available to Wirral Library users. But we remind our customers that Wirral Library members remain responsible for items borrowed on their library cards and will be liable for any fines or other charges which may accrue, irrespective of any alerts which Library Elf may or may not provide.

World Book Day

Today we celebrated World Book Day in the company of Black Horse Hill Infant School.The chiildren come to the library in classes for stories and fun, dressed as their favourite storybook characters. To add to the fun, the teachers dress up too! This year Laura and I (Julie) also dressed up as the characters Meg the witch and Mog her cat from the "Meg & Mog" stories. We had a really great day!

I did not take any photos of the children; but I wanted to capture some of the flavour of the day so here are pictures of the adults!

Our thanks go to Mrs Crook (Paddington Bear) who organised it all, to the teachers who enter into the spirit of the day so enthusiastically, the children who make it all worthwhile...and not forgetting the parents, grandparents and other helpers who accompany the children and keep them safe.

My personal thanks to Laura, who is just so good with the children and who worked so hard today!

Bob the builder

Jack (without his beanstalk!)

Peter Pan

The wolf from Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood herself!

Cinderella

Another Bob the Builder

Bob AGAIN!

Maid Marion meets Paddington Bear

The Granny from Red Riding Hood

Princess Leia from Star Wars

Robin Hood

The lovely Meg

Meg and Paddington planning the day...

Adult Reading Group - March

The Adult Reading group meet to discuss "Double Fault" by Lionel Shriver on Thursday, 6th March between 6 and 7 pm. Refreshments will be served. All welcome - even if you haven't read the book!


The Bookseller, Feb 3, 2006
'Purposeful and provocative novel... fans of Kevin won't be disappointed'

Observer Review, May 7, 2006
‘A brilliant tale of doomed love’

Do you agree with the reviews?

News from Knit & Natter

The next meeting of the knit & Natter group will be on 29th February.

The following meeting (14th March) will be to plan the "Children's Knit-in" session.

The "Knit-in" will take place on 28th March.

Regular meetings will resume on 11th April.

Introducing "KNIT CLUB"
"The first rule of Knit Club is never talk about Knit Club...."
Knit Club is the "younger sister" of Knit & Natter and will be held on Thursday evenings at West Kirby Library, from 5.30 7.00 pm. All ages are welcome, especially young mums and teenagers.Informal tuition, fun and great refreshments...come along and join us! The first meeting will be held on 10th April.

Some library facts and figures...

Some facts about public libraries in England:

There are about 3100 public libraries in England and 460 mobile libraries.
More than 60% of people have a library ticket
96% of people believe that public libraries are a valuable community resource
There were over 274 million visits to public libraries during 2002/3, an increase of almost 4 million on the previous year
35% of the population visit public libraries at least once a month
More people visit libraries than go to cinemas or attend football matches
There are 92.4million books in 3,500 public libraries and every year more than 318million book loans
There are a further 34million issues of other material, including DVDs, videos, talking books
Libraries provide over 60million hours a year of high speed access to the internet through the People's Network
Library staff answer 58.5million enquiries a year
More thatn 22,000 library staff run the service.