WIREDGOV

Huw Lewis, Minister for Housing, Regeneration and Heritage will launch a new libraries strategy that will ensure that library services across Wales work in partnership to enhance services for library users.

The Minister will be at Treorchy Library with adventurer Lowri Morgan to launch the four-year plan, at one of the events at the start of Libraries Fortnight, the annual library festival, which this year has a sporting theme.

Called Libraries Inspire: the strategic development framework for Welsh libraries 2012-16, the strategy will contribute to key strategic priorities such as literacy, learning, digital inclusion, sustainable communities and a healthy population.  The programme is supported with around £2 million from the Welsh Government in 2012-13 for capital and programme costs.

Libraries Inspire will:

  · Assist library services to work in partnership to develop new, innovative services such as e-books across Wales

  · Invest in developing modern and attractive public library buildings to enable a wider range of activities to take place in our libraries

  · Contribute to the development of people’s literacy an information literacy (the ability to find and use information) skills – skills that will assist people throughout their life in education, work and leisure

  · Contribute towards the Welsh Government’s digital inclusion agenda by providing free access to computers and the internet as well as taking advantage of the opportunities provided by mobile technology to deliver services direct to people wherever they may be
 
  · Promote the benefits of using all types of libraries – public, educational and workplace libraries

Huw Lewis said: 

“I have always valued the role that libraries played in my life and during my visits to libraries across Wales, I have been impressed by the wide range of activities provided by libraries.  This new strategy will allow libraries across Wales to further develop their services and enable them to work in partnership to provide the best library services possible to the people of Wales.”

Treorchy Library, the venue for today’s launch, benefitted from £100,000 Welsh Government funding to refurbish the library and create a modern, dedicated space for teenagers, which was designed with input from the teenagers themselves.