Visitors to Todmorden Library got up close and personal with alien items including Martian rocks, meteors and pieces of the moon.

The outer space items formed part of the ‘Festival of Infinite Possibilities’ with children's activities related to space and space travel, from building cardboard rockets to a story walk and making a terrarium out of recycled materials.

Libraries bring culture and science to urban and rural areas in all parts of the UK with creative and innovative projects that provide new opportunities to children and the wider community to engage with science and technology, while improving literacy.

Todmorden has a strong modern folktale linked to an alien abduction and an observatory, and part as part of the festival there was a quiz night for adults and a talk from the local UFO society.

Following the event and activities, the library’s membership numbers increased by over 100 per cent, including walk-ins from local business, and many new users are still using the service.

The most popular activity was possibly the terrariums, which explored how people might look to grow food in space in the future, along with reusing and recycling household items.

“I can't believe I can hold a piece of Mars in my local library! This is just the most incredible day. I remember watching the mission to the moon at school, and now there's a piece of it right in front of me! Thank you so much for making this happen,” said one attendee.

Todmorden Library is the first public library to make use of UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) ‘borrow the moon’ scheme.

The borrow the moon scheme makes loan boxes, which contain investigation equipment, samples and guides, available to libraries, schools, universities and research institutes.