Edinburgh Central Library and New College Library
The Edinburgh Central Library was one of my favorite
visits of the whole trip. They
have such a wonderful organization and I loved hearing about all of the
services they provide to their community.
It also helps that their librarians are so nice and welcoming. They actually won an award for best
library service in 2012, and their people satisfaction survey showed 97%
satisfaction for the same year.
Their presentation was broken down into 3 sections- social, digital, and
physical. I really don’t know
which part I was most impressed with because all of them are really
incredible. For their social
section, they have magazines and a lot of programs. They programs start with Bookbug for 0-3 year olds, and go
all the way up to programs for the elderly. I loved the program they have with Dyslexia Scotland. This program is great because it
focuses on young people to try to get them to come to the library and make
reading fun, not a challenge. They
can feel comfortable and get help.
It also raises awareness about dyslexia. Another great program is the Reading Champion Project that
is for children in care who have negative or no education and literacy
experiences. They have about 100
kids in the program. These are
only some of the services the library provides. There are many more and I think it is inspirational to see
all they do and the community involvement.
The digital library is also extremely popular. It has been showing exponential
growth. In the future, they want
to gear services for the next generation and incorporate new technology. For digital services, the library has a
24/7 digital library with 50 e-resources.
The most popular is a driving test resource. They also use social media a lot to promote the
library. There is one employee who
spends 100% of his time developing and expanding platforms. It has show to really pay off for
them. They do YouTube videos, and
they promote everything on Twitter, where they have over 7,000 followers! They also have a blog that is more
serious but takes more time and they are trying to use it less. They also use Facebook for event
promotion. I loved their Your
Edinburgh site. It has a lot of
community information. It is free
for organizations to register and create a web presence. They also have a special collection
about Edinburgh with 6-7,000 images.
I also loved ourtownstories.co.uk which has maps of the city from 1890
until now. So cool. A really great
thing they have now is a mobile app for smart phones! It is the first in the
UK! I was just really impressed with the Edinburgh Central Library. They are doing a great job!
Next we went to New College Library, which was very
unique. It actually used to be
church, so the building is gorgeous.
In 1936, it became the library.
There are beautiful windows throughout the building. In 2005-2006, the library was remodeled
to include wireless internet and outlets.
The library has ¼ million books.
They receive external funding from the Church of Scotland. They also received a $1 million
donation for special collections.
The library is open to students, as well as the public. They have 5 stacks which we got to
tour, and that was really interesting.
I was impressed that everything after 1985 is available online! Before that date may or may not be
online. One of the best things I
saw was a first edition King James Bible from 1611. It was really an awesome moment for me. One of the most interesting things
about the library, I thought, was the late returns fines. I am always interested to see how
different libraries handle things like late items. Here, they use fines as a preventative measure, not as a
punishment. They charge 2p each
minute that the book is late!! After a fine reaches 10 pounds, the person is
not allowed to check out books. I
had never heard of a policy that goes by each minute late. It is really interesting, but it seems
to work for them!
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