Wiltshire Council unveils its library strategy

Wiltshire Council’s Cabinet has confirmed a strategy that outlines its library service’s vision, purpose and key areas of focus for the next five years.

The Wiltshire Council Library Strategy 2025-2030 was agreed at the council’s latest Cabinet meeting, which took place on 10 December.

The strategy has been developed following extensive dialogue with communities and partners across the county.

A high proportion of older people use library services and therefore demand is predicted to increase in the coming years, just as the county’s ageing population does, and therefore the library service is ensuring it can support the council’s prevention agenda and help reduce demand for council health and wellbeing services where it can.

The council’s library service completed a very positive peer review last summer and among the recommendations featured in the subsequent report was to “Articulate the vision of the library service and create a strategy through engagement with internal and external stakeholders so everyone has ownership of it”.

The strategy sets out the council’s six focus areas for its library service, building on the work it already does, including:

• Comprehensive and Efficient Service’ – ‘ensuring well-trained staff and volunteers are available in welcoming, accessible buildings and mobile libraries to deliver services reflecting the needs of communities
• Reading, culture and creativity – building a literate community for all ages through access to books, reading and cultural experiences.
• Information and digital – enable access to quality information and digital services.

• Health and wellbeing – support the health and wellbeing of library users.
• Children and young people – Inspire children and young people to enjoy books and read for pleasure from an early age.
• Accessible services – provide an inclusive and welcoming reading and learning environment.

It was a successful and productive year for the library services throughout 2023/24, which included 1.8 million items loaned, 1.27 million visits to its 30 libraries and mobile libraries, almost 30,000 children attending rhyme time sessions and more than 6,700 events attended by almost 129,000 people.

Cllr Ian Blair-Pilling, Cabinet Member for Libraries, said: “Our new and ambitious library strategy will underpin all the fantastic and worthwhile work that already happens within the service and will support us to stay on track to achieve everything we’ve set out.

“Our vision is for libraries to be trusted spaces at the centre of their local community, and we’ve demonstrated that we are much more than a service that loans books by providing a number of additional vital services that people rely upon.

“As society evolves so must we and we’ll ensure our library services continue to innovate and adapt to the changing needs and habits of our local communities – and this strategy will be key to that.”

The Cabinet report and the draft version of the Wiltshire Council Library Strategy can be found at https://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=141&MId=15462. The final public version of the strategy will be published early in the new year.

More information about the Wiltshire Council library service can be found at www.wiltshire.gov.uk/libraries-home.