Libraries Change Lives Week launches today to raise the profile of libraries to prospective political candidates (PPCs) and the press to showcase how libraries across the country impact their users and the communities they serve.

CILIP has been working closely with library staff and library services to build a portfolio of the life-changing impact libraries have on their users through the stories that librarians have shared to illustrate the breadth and value of their work.

These 150-plus stories are hosted on an interactive map and reveal narratives of dedicated library staff across the UK working daily with their users on the high street enabling people to access public services, in the NHS helping guide clinicians with life-saving research and practice, on university campuses enabling learning and innovation, and in prisons doing life-changing work.

CILIP has been working closely with library staff and library services to build an impressive portfolio of the life-changing impact libraries have on their users through the stories that librarians have shared to illustrate the breadth and value of their work.

These 150-plus stories are hosted on an interactive map and reveal narratives of dedicated library staff across the UK working daily with their users on the high street enabling people to access public services, in the NHS helping guide clinicians with life-saving research and practice, on university campuses enabling learning and innovation, and in prisons doing life-changing work.

CILIP Chief Executive Louis Coiffait-Gunn said:

“Building on a proposal from Baroness Sanderson’s independent review of public libraries earlier in the year, as the professional association for the library and information sector we wanted to show government at all levels the enormous value of libraries to their communities – locally and nationally - and the huge range of benefits a vibrant, properly-funded sector delivers for the public.”

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