Highland Libraries - Opening the Treasure Chest

For the second year in a row, The Highland Council has been successful in a bid to the Scottish Executive’s Public Library Improvement Fund.  This year’s successful bid for £29,197 will be aimed directly at improving library services to children. Entitled Opening the Treasure Chest, the project will see the development and delivery of training for all library staff and many educational partners such as teachers, nursery and play group staff in how to help children, their parents and carers make the most of their local library. 

 In particular the already successful rhymetimes and storytimes which encourage parents and carers to share books with young children and babies will be rolled out to all libraries.   Additionally programmes of primary school visits will be developed, the focus being on promoting reading for enjoyment reading for information and on developing the use of the public library as a community resource.   The intended result is that pupils will arrive at secondary school with a consistent level of information skills which can then be built upon by School Librarians.

Christopher Phillips, the Council’s Life Long Learning Manager within the Education Culture and Sport Service, welcomed the funding and said: “This exciting project will have a significant, enriching impact on children, teachers and parents across the whole Highland Council area and everyone involved in the bid is to be congratulated on their foresight.”

As the funding will provide support staff during the development and delivery phases of the project customers will see only a seamless move towards these improvements in service.

Last year’s successful bid saw the installation of self-issue systems in six libraries to help free staff time to respond to customer requests for help with their information and reading needs.