What funding was available, the Library Innovation Fund and the pilot projects.
Following the public engagement work that led to the 2020 to 2024 Library Strategy, we started 2 important pieces of work to enable Bristol citizens to directly influence the development of the library service. These were the Library Innovation Fund and 2 library led pilot projects.
The Library Innovation Fund
Through this fund, we had £108,000 to:
- help set up Friends Groups of our libraries
- enable Friends Groups and other community organisations to try out new ideas to help improve their local library services
This project ran from the end of 2019 to early 2023. Read the pdf Library Innovation Fund report (1.73 MB) .
The pilot projects
We worked with external partners to develop new ideas to improve the library service. These included:
My Library, My Space
A project in partnership with Rising Arts Agency aimed at finding out what young people:
- value about their library service
- want their library service to be
Read the pdf My Library, My Space report (15.01 MB) . If you need this report in another format, email library.ideas@bristol.gov.uk
The Fishponds Owl
A project working with Upfest and local artist Tom Habben to use creative signage to draw attention to the hidden away Fishponds Library. Find out more at The Fishponds Owl.