Winner:
Finalists:
HMP Edinburgh Library Partnership (The City of Edinburgh Council)
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A library for prisoners was opened in 2008 at HMP Edinburgh (Saughton). Its purpose was to produce a library with a refreshed vision that could tackle social inclusion issues amongst the prison population and provide support opportunities for education and employment, improving the transition from prison to outside community life.
With a bright and welcoming design in contrast to the rest of the prison environment, the library includes designs and fittings that were created and built by prisoners themselves. As well as providing numerous opportunities to improve literacy, the library has study desks and laptops for use in education and to support activities such as creating CVs, and also has a Play Station to encourage those for whom reading is not the first priority when visiting the library. In addition prisoners can learn librarian skills with 10 prisoners already trained to deliver basic library skills.
The only library in Scotland with a waiting list, it has welcomed over 12,500 prisoners through the doors in just a year and has hosted a family event, the first of its kind in Scotland, where inmates’ families and children were invited into the prison to work with their fathers.
Home From Home (London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Library Service)
Watch a video about the project on Youtube
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The Home From Home project arose from the recognition that the borough’s home library service had over 400 individual users aged between 30 and 100+ who were unable to attend the many events and activities hosted by the library because of health issues.
Devised in partnership with the borough’s Transport Services and the Primary Care Trust, the Home From Home initiative reached out to socially excluded and vulnerable members of the community to break down the walls of isolation and to empower them once again, enriching and changing their lives.
Now when an event or activity takes place in one of the libraries the home-restricted client group in the surrounding area are invited to attend, with fully accessible transport provided. To date over 70 different people have attended events they would not previously have been able to, allowing them to experience the full range of services and to once again realise what a valuable resource library and information service are.
Macmillan Information & Support Service (Manchester Information and Library Service)
Watch a video about the project on Youtube
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Delivered through an innovative partnership with the charity Macmillan Cancer Support, Manchester Libraries’ Macmillan Information and Support Service provides information and invaluable support to people in the area affected by cancer. Housed in three of Manchester’s larger libraries, the information provided includes books that can be borrowed, leaflets that can be taken away and reference materials, with further support information also included in general Health Information Points in every library in the city.
With a remit to provide accessible support, increase awareness and respond to changing cancer priorities and issues, the service doesn’t only help cancer patients; it’s also a resource for carers, relatives, friends, survivors as well as people with worries or concerns. It supplies information about all aspects of cancer and healthy living, as well as personal, confidential appointments where people can talk about what they’re going through. It signposts support groups as well as practical information providers. The informal library setting is crucial: at the heart of the local community, it helps people feel more comfortable and adds a different dimension to the services offered by the more traditional health services.
The initiative now looks set to become a blueprint for future collaboration on cancer and other health-related information provision in public libraries.