Rochdale has a new Central Library - Official!

Saturday 27th April will stick in my memory for a long, long time. For all the right reasons. Rochdale Central Library planned the day to mark the official opening in the brand new building of Number One Riverside. Nick Oldham, Tommy Donbavand and Craig Bradley provided the "headline acts" in terms of authors and in Craig's case "PERFORMANCE" poet - and anyone who has seen Craig in action will know why I put that in capitals. Nick is a crimewriting novelist and spoke admirably of his craft. Tommy is the author of Scream Street - and more, a notable more being Doctor Who. I'd recommend any school to book him. Norman Warwick acted as Master of Ceremonies for us and did his usual brilliant job. Norman was also commissioned to write a poem for the library, which he did and performed with aplomb. Norman was ably assisted by yours truly as the second voice and members of Touchstones Creative Writing Group displaying the words of the middle section of the poem as it was read. I have to say when I first read the poem it brought a lump to my throat as it hit the spot so well and so eloquently. There were many opportunities for families to get involved in creative writing on the day, prizes were offered for the best Book Spine Poem and the best Kenning. The Where's Wally Treasure Hunt proved very popular with over 70 entries. Younger children were not forgotten with a colouring competition to try out their skills and Irene Peachey was on hand to sign them up for Bookstart Bear Club. The Reverend Margaret Smith was a star, volunteering to help make sure the children knew exactly what was going on and her routine for "Is poetry cool or does it leave you in a spin?" has to be seen to be believed. Vickke did us proud with her face painting, a riot of colour and character in every face. Jason Grimshaw aka Ryan Thomas opened Bean coffee shop, much to the delight of many teenage girls. The whole place was really buzzing, I look forward to keeping the feel good factor going for a long time yet.

Still here!

It has been too long since any news was posted. There is one huge news item to tell you about. Rochdale Children's Library has moved! Not just the children's library, Rochdale Central Library has moved into a brand new building, Number One Riverside. To find the children's library first practice your penguin-walk, this will help you enter the revolving doors at the front of the building. You will now find yourself by the ornamental light sabres (look up and you will see what I mean.)Pausing only to adopt your Mohican hairdo and whisper the mantra "Percy Is A Punk!" you must take a journey the entire length of the ground floor, passing, if you can, Beans coffee shop.Now look to your right, the flying seagull-cloud-books in the corner will tell you that you have arrived in the children's area. Congratulations and enjoy!

What to do in the holidays

Feeling bored? Nothing to do? There's still time to visit your local library - there are some craft activities on offer at all of our libraries.When you are back at school you could come along at the weekend - 28th April for Rochdale Readers at Rochdale Central Library. we are there between 10-12

Sing, Stars and Bookworms

Howard Street Children's Centre are holding a new session for early years at The Wheatsheaf Library.
Starting on Friday 3rd December 1.30-2.30 the Sing, Stars and Bookworms sessions are for families with pre-school children.
As well as songs and stories there will be signing and I'm sure some rhymes too.
Everyone is welcome, just make your way to the children's library. I'm hoping the singing will be loud enough to rock the rafters!
There will be twelve sessions to test the water and it could become a permanent session if it proves popular.

Bookstart

We've had another Bookstart Regional Day in November where we get together and find out what's new in Bookstart Bears' world!
Bookstart Day will become Bookstart Week in June 2011.
Don't forget your child can have a Bookstart Pack at around 9 months, 18 months and 36 months.
In Rochdale the Health Visitors gift the first two packs for 9 and 18 months. The third pack, called a Treasure Chest, is gifted in all Rochdale Early Years' settings.We gift to children who will start reception class in the next school year.
We keep a few spares at all our libraries for any children that have missed out.

Rochdale Readers Extended Craft Session

We had a Rochdale Readers' session last Saturday. We made stars for the festive season. Whenever we have a craft session with the Rochdale Readers we always get loads more children wanting to join in. This time I had to leave the stars and recycled Christmas cards out until the end of the day as so many families wanted to have a go.

Vikings, Tudors and Chinese Dragons

We now have a new resource for use with class visits. I'm eagerly anticipating using it.
We have a limited supply of costumes from various periods of history. The idea is to get two volunteers to dress in the costumes when a class visits one of our libraries.
So far I only have Osiris and Isis from Ancient Egypt, a Roman Centurion and Roman woman, Tudor man and woman, Viking man and woman AND a Chinese Dragon!
I'm hoping they will add even more fun to learning about Non-fiction stock in the library

Play room

I was talking to some of the children in the Wheatsheaf Library and told them that we were starting to make plans for the library that will be part of the new Rochdale town centre development.

A little later one of them came back to me with their three-year old brother, Hamad, in tow. He'd drawn a picture of the play room for the new library:

It's lovely to see the happy smiling faces!

Ian Bland Performance Poet

If you have enjoyed the poetry and performance of Craig Bradley here's a date for your diary.

Ian Bland will be at The Wheatsheaf Library on Thursday 3rd August 2009 11.00 a.m.-12 noon. Come along and join us, no need to book a place. Ian will read his poems and then we all get a chance to write in a poetry workshop. We are thinking of children aged between 5-11 as the best audience for this event.

He has visited lots of schools in Rochdale but this is his first time in a Rochdale Library. I'm looking forward to giving him a huge welcome.

Boys Into Books, Craig Bradley and a BIG BAG of Leeks

I had some money left in the pot from the Boys Into Books project and was able to book Craig Bradley, performance poet, for two days. To call Craig a performance poet is like calling Caviar lumpy fish paste or calling a diamond a piece of coal. You really do need to see him in performance to catch what
it’s all about; he’s a PERFORMANCE poet.

I booked him for Alkrington and Heywood libraries for Monday 11th May and The Wheatsheaf Library for Wednesday 13th May before I realised that was SATS week! It’s an interesting insight into stress, overworked staff and how people cope with added pressure (no, not me this time, the teachers) that the reaction at some schools was “NO it’s SATs, we can’t possibly come” or “It’s SATs, the children will need a break, we are definitely coming.” I can understand both those views.

We had St. Thomas More, St. Michael’s, Deeplish, Greenbank and Heybrook schools participating and without exception they all had a great time – staff and pupils. All went back to school with a new mantra

“POETRY IS NOT PANTS!”

To give you a little insight to the fun and frolics of the day, try this tongue twister

“One smart fellow, he felt smart;
Two smart fellows, they felt smart;
Three smart fellows, they felt smart;
They all felt smart together!”

As for the big bag of leeks, one of Craig’s poems is called “56 ways of looking at a leek.” In rhyming couplets and with a couple of helpers wielding leeks to join in with the actions, Craig shows us how to look at everyday objects with a poet’s eye.

As a by-product of the poetry gig, I was left with a big bag of slightly dog-eared leeks. Or, with my poet’s eye, I had a consignment of poet tenderised fresh vegetables for a gourmet delight.

I made a huge pan of leek and potato soup and there were still enough leeks for a Parmesan cheese and leek loaf to accompany it. I would highly recommend Craig, so much soup comes from a Craig Bradley gig you can feed yourself for a weekend and still have enough left to satisfy five members of staff on a late night Monday.

The verdict? Delicious!

I love poetry – especially poetry you can eat!

Book Ahead: Help for early years

Book Ahead is a national initiative providing books for loan to early years groups such as nurseries and playgroups.

To launch Book Ahead we asked Neil Griffiths, The Storysack Man, to join us in an evening workshop for early years workers at Touchstones, Rochdale on Tuesday, 10 February 2009. This was an opportunity to find out more about Book Ahead and the range of other services we provide for early years groups.

Many thanks to everybody who attended a very successful evening. The feedback we have received is overwhelmingly positive. Thanks also to those people who could not attend but are still interested in the Book Ahead scheme. We will be keeping in contact with you.

If you are involved in an early years group and want to know more about Book Ahead in the Rochdale area, please ring our Children's Services Manager, Ray Stearn, on 01706 924972.

National Year of Reading

2008 is The National Year of Reading, a celebration of words and reading in every form: from novels to song lyrics, from poetry to film scripts.

From April to December events and activities linked to The National Year of Reading will have a monthly theme:

• April: Read all about it!
• May: Mind and body
• June: Reading escapes
• July: Rhythm and rhyme
• August: Read the game
• September: You are what you read
• October: Word of Mouth
• November: Screen reads
• December: Write the future

Look out for National Year of Reading events in a library near you!

Children's Plus Survey: headline results

A quick summary of the Children's Plus Survey results, which are mostly very encouraging.

Children were asked whether they thought that the library overall was ‘good’, ‘OK’ or ‘bad’. The standard is that 77% should state that the library is ‘good’.

• 89% stated that the library overall is good.
• The highest results, discounting those libraries that had less than 10 questionnaires completed, were Norden and Wardle libraries, with 97%.

Who do children visit the library with?

• The majority visited with ‘someone from my family’ (58%)
• A good proportion visited with their school, nursery or playgroup (23%)
• A proportionally larger of respondents at Langley, Junction, Smallbridge and Wardle libraries visited the library on their own (over 16-23%). This was very different to the remaining libraries (where this tended to be less than 10%).

Why do children visit the library?

• The most popular activities were ‘borrowing things’ (66%) or ‘reading’ (41%).
• Also popular were ‘using computers’ (34%) or ‘looking around’.
• ‘Playing with toys’ was popular at Darnhill Library (35%) and Balderstone Library (47%).
• Belfield, Langley and Wardle had very high proportions of children visiting to use computers (all over 50%).
• Doing homework was a key reason for visiting Wardle Library (39%).

Why do children borrow books?

Children were asked why they like borrowing books from the library (applies to those who stated that they visit to borrow books).

• The majority ticked that they ‘like reading’ (68%), that ‘the library has good books’ (44%) or that they ‘want to get better at reading’ (39%).
• At Belfield, 57% ticked that they wanted to read books to help with their homework - much higher than elsewhere.

What do children think of our books?

• 86% thought our books are good
• 13% OK
• 1% bad

What do children think of homework help?

• 67% thought homework help was good
• 30% OK
• 3% bad

Compared to how children responded to the similar question for books and computers (below), this is a disappointingly low result.

Use of computers in libraries

Children were asked where they use computers (they could tick more than one option).

• The majority use computers at home (72%) or at school/nursery/playgroup (60%).
• 42% use computers at the library.
• Smithybridge, Norden and Alkrington had a low response rate for those using computers in the library (between 15-20%).

Why do children use computers?
Children were asked what they use the computers for in the library (applies to those who stated they visit the library to use computers).

• The majority use them for playing games (65%)
• 53% use them for homework.
• 54% use them for looking at websites.

What do children think of our computers?

• 83% think they are good
• 16% OK
• 1% bad

The number of respondents ticking ‘good’ was quite low at Alkrington and Belfield (less than 70%).

Participation in activities

Children were asked if they had been to the library for activities such as reading groups, events etc. They could tick more than one option (including ‘none of these’).

• 47% had not attended any event.
• 26% had attended an under 5s event, and 26% a holiday activity.
• 17% had attended a ‘book or reading activity’, 9% an ‘after-school activity’ and 6% ‘to take part in a reading group’.
• 44% of children at Norden, 49% at Alkrington and 41% at Smithybridge said that they had attended an under-5s activity - a much greater proportion than other libraries.
• Nearly 50% of respondents at Darnhill had attended a holiday activity - again a much greater proportion than other libraries.

Children’s perception of libraries

Children were asked if they thought the library was ‘a friendly place’, ‘a safe place’, ‘easy to get to’, etc. In general, all libraries scored highly in each of the perception questions apart from ‘open when I want’.

• 100% of Castleton, Langley, Spotland and Wardle respondents thought the library was a ‘safe place’.
• However, only 85% of respondents at Castleton thought the library was ‘easy to get to’ - lower than other libraries.
• Some libraries scored low on ‘open when I want’ (50-60%). These were Alkrington, Smallbridge and Wardle.

The impact of libraries on children

• 66% said that use of libraries had helped them to read better.
• 53% said that it helped them to ‘learn and find things out’ - this was particularly high at Belfield (69%).
• 47% said that it helped them to do better at school - and this was very high at Belfield and Norden.
• 38% said that it helped them to ‘join in and try new things’.
• 32% said that it helped them to use computers, and 24% to ‘make new friends’.
• At Balderstone, Belfield and Darnhill, 40-50% of children said that they made new friends in the library.

Age, gender, ethnicity

• 56% of respondents were girls, 44% boys.
• The largest split in gender was at Spotland, where 70% were girls, 30% boys.
• The majority of respondents were aged 5-10 (54%)
• 80% identified themselves as white, 20% Asian, black, ‘mixed’ or ‘other’.
• Belfield and Smallbridge had the largest proportion of respondents from ethnic minority groups - both over 40%.

Library Tree Party

Balderstone Library's Tree parties were held on 7th and 9th November as part of the Breathing Places campaign.

Twenty-seven adults and thirty-two children attended the two sessions.

The under 5's event included stories, craft and a nature trail.

The Library tree (a beautiful thick card 3D tree from the BBC) has now been decorated with children's art work from the event.

What Makes You Happy

Littleborough Poetry Group is having a workshop for children called "What Makes You Happy" at Littleborough Library from 2.30pm — 3.30pm on Monday 29th October.

The workshop's suitable for children aged 7 or over.

If you're interested, please ring the library — (01706) 378219 — to reserve a place.