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.

Heywood and Wheatsheaf Libraries — temporary closures

The Wheatsheaf Library will be closed for re-carpeting from Wednesday 7th November 2007 for approximately 3 weeks.

Books and other items on loan can be returned to the Special Services unit which is situated opposite the main Library entrance in the Wheatsheaf Centre.

Heywood Library will be closed from Monday 12th November 2007 for approximately six months for extensive refurbishment works.

Some of the stock from Heywood Library, notably Best sellers and Graphic Novels, are being temporarily transferred to Darnhill Library, which will have a temporary extension to its opening hours.:

Darnhill Library opening hours from 12th November 2007:

Monday	9.30-1	2-7.30pm
Tuesday	9.30-1	2-5.30pm
Wednesday	9.30-12.30pm
Thursday	9.30-1	2-5.30pm
Friday	9.30-1	2-5.30pm
Saturday	9.30-1	2-4pm

We still want to see you, even if these libraries are closed!

Items issued at Heywood and the Wheatsheaf in the run up to the closures have extended loan periods so that they are not due back until the libraries are expected to re-open. Fines are not incurred on days when libraries are closed.

Borrowers from Heywood and the Wheatsheaf Libraries are welcome in all libraries in the Borough. Your barcoded library card lets you borrow or reserve items from any of our libraries.

We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience.

Masquerade!

Half term week
Monday 29th October to Saturday 3rd November

Make a mask at your local library

What’s available?
Here’s a clue!
Witch pumpkin the cat make the wolf owl with?

Call in any time during usual library hours

Big Wild Read

From my first look at the rough figures we have increased those starting The Big Wild Read by 18% and the figures for those finishing is up by 2%. (I haven't had all the starters' cards back in yet for me to double-check all the figures so we're not audit-proof yet.)

We had about 36% of the children finishing, which is below our target but getting nearly seventeen hundred children involved and reading something over the summer holidays isn't to be sniffed at.

Once I've confirmed the figures I'll see how they relate to the promotional work we did at schools just before the holidays. It'll be useful to see if our visiting a school to talk about the summer reading game leads to an increase in participation.

National Poetry Day

Today's National Poetry Day, with this year's theme being dreams.

Do you have a favourite poem on this theme? Please use the "Comment" function on this blog to let us know about it. My favourite poets are Paul Cookson and Spike Milligan.

Some of the children's poetry books in our libraries.

Springhill High

Pamela Taylor-Bramwell went to last night's open night at Springhill High School to promote the services for schoolchildren we provide in our libraries. The school's very keen on the children being members of their local library. Karen Taylor, the school librarian, is encouraging as many as possible to join and is working with Pamela to make sure they've all got PIN numbers as well as their library barcodes so that they can use all the facilities available on the Kids' Portal.

Pamela explained how to use the Kids' Portal and also told them about the online information services that are available for the children to use at home as well as in our libraries.

Children's Book Week

It's Children's Book Week, the annual celebration of reading for pleasure organised by Booktrust. This year's theme is the environment, which follows on nicely from the Big Wild Read and complements other activities we've been involved in such as LEAF and the BBC's Breathing Places campaign.

If you or your children don't already have a favourite book or story about the environment, or if you want to try something new, our Big Wild Read and Little Wild Read lists might give you a few ideas.

LEAF again

Another days' worth of LEAF workshops tomorrow, this time in the Memorial Gardens. I hope the weather holds!

This is a good opportunity to sell our services to the children and the accompanying grown-ups. Last week's session in Littleborough Library let me present the library as a friendly, welcoming place with fun things to do and simply heaving with interesting books. This week's session lets me demonstrate that library services don't stop at the front door of the building and that the public library service is more than just a building with a sign stuck on it and some neat stuff inside.

These events are also always a good opportunity for networking and sharing ideas. I'm always happy to borrow or adapt ideas that will keep my "act" fresh with my audiences. (I wonder what I would think of some of my earliest storytimes.) Keeping a high positive profile with partners and potential partners is also money in the bank for possible future events and programmes.

Richard and Judy's Kids' Book Special

A few weeks back we were one of the library authorities contacted by somebody from "Richard & Judy" to see if we'd be interested in getting one of our children's book clubs involved in the programme's children's reading promotion. Sadly, in the end the groups we suggested weren't able to get involved but it was nice to be asked and it certainly generated a bit of interest!

Rochdale Readers children's book club has decided to "shadow" the Richard & Judy Book Club by reading the titles in the list and getting back together to share their impressions. If you want to try it yourself the list's on our Kids' Portal.

Big Wild Read

The Big Wild Read officially finished on Saturday. I'm now busily collecting all the "finishers' cards" so that we can make sure we get everybody's certificates out to them. Some children have elected to pick up their certificates from the library but most are having them presented at school.

It's a lot early days for doing all the number-crunching for the performance indicators. For the next few days I'm just focusing on getting the ends tied up and hoping that all the children enjoyed themselves and got something out of it, whether they finished or not.

LEAF

I spent all day yesterday at Littleborough Library, providing the Library Service's contribution to the Local Environment Action Fortnight. This is something we like to get involved in each year as it's a subject close to my heart and it gives us another opportunity to present our libraries as learning and information venues for organisations working with children.

The event went really well. The workshops I presented gave the children the opportunity to do some environment/natural history-related craft activities (Big Wild Read leftovers with a few garnishes but popular with the children anyway).

I also made our Kids Portal available on the People's Network PCs and encouraged children to have a look at it and then let them look at some of the linked sites in our "Wild Stuff" list. The jigsaws in the Smithsonian's "Great Cats for Kids" page proved very popular.

CIPFA plus surveys

I had a long-standing arrangement to meet a class at Balderstone Library this morning, which was a good opportunity to get the children to give us their views in the CIPFA Plus survey, which starts today.


An unanticipated tripping-up point: some of the boys were putting a cross in the box for "I am a girl" and some of the girls were putting a cross for "I am a boy." We actually want them to put a cross in the box that applies to them. After a bit of a think the teacher came up with the explanation for the confusion: schoolchildren see a tick as meaning "yes" and a cross for meaning "no." So putting a cross in the "I am a girl box" meant "no, I am not a girl." Now we know I can warn everyone to make sure to explain that we want crosses in the boxes that apply.

Percy is a Punk Postscript

A really nice trip out to Kentmere Primary School. They've made a nice reading area for the children to use and it all looks very neat and friendly.

The teachers are running a "featured author" promotion with the children, the first one being Anne Fine.

They even managed to rustle up a ribbon for me to cut for the opening!