Storyville - The Librarians A Storyville documentary that explores how librarians across the US are risking their safety to defend free speech as book bans and censorship threaten democracy from within.

The excellent Librarians film mentioned in the podcast can be seen here:
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

As ever a great episode and a brilliant shout out to libraries, librarians and The Librarians.

@sturdyalex.bsky.social we launched the Libraries Alliance yesterday with a strong rallying cry from Jeanette Winterson:

"libraries are the antidote to garbage"

Much needed and a great source of hope

The excitement mounting here at @britishacademy.bsky.social for the Libraries Alliance launch - a few minutes to go with a brilliant line up including Jeanette Winterson, Lord Blunkett and more

But more importantly a chance to hear from those delivering and using library services.

Librarians at the Bangor Public Library changed my life. They let me take out books from the adult section and read there for hours. It was nearly across the street from where I grew up. Amazing and beautiful place, and wonderful librarians.

My local libraries gave me a space to escape the chaos and emotional dramas that ensued in my home. It also gave me a space to study. I Just love the calmness and the huge amount of things you can now do in libraries.

I had the standard immigrant family childhood.

My mum taught me to read at 3 and after that the local library was my second home.

I then got a Saturday job in the library & met my oldest friend.

Without the library I would be nothing.

#LibrariesChangeLives

Sister-in-law is a writer and she still talks about the library her mum took her to as THE most magical place. By coincidence we live nearby, and it's the same library my kids go to about 4 days a week. Councils trying to balance their budgets is a very, very scary thing

They’re gorgeous aren’t they. I’m always taken aback by how much passion and generosity people have when you give them a chance to talk about what libraries mean.

I grew up on a council estate in SE London back in the 50s no money for books barely enough for food and warmth but a mobile library every week was a key to other worlds and my imagination I joined the forces and lived abroad, taught for a while, but always my love of reading came with me such a joy

#libraries
My mum was a librarian for 40 years.
When my future dad was divorced by a woman who took everything & living in a damp lonely bedsit- he would sit in the library every night for warmth, company and he was obsessed with reading, like her, so they met.
10 yrs later when they had me...

Great hashtag @stuhennigan.bsky.social - #LibrariesChangeLives is def true for me too. The learning place, the safe space for the scared-other me. (Yes I was an early ‘70s queer kid with no role models, no stories, no way of knowing what my otherness meant.)

Yes - it’s always been the adults who have struggled in our case - the kids have loved it! Only thing is breakfast can be limited so pack up is needed for early risers…

Mine is Stu’s call out for stories on how libraries have changed, shaped and saved us and the beautiful replies:

#LibrariesChangeLives

bsky.app/profile/stuh...

Pic of me in a Leicester Library Frame for National Year of Reading

••• "Thanks to my mum who took me to the library as a little boy I've loved reading all my life. It's opened worlds." Drew Gummerson, Author. GO ALL IN National Year of Reading 2026

My mum died a few days ago. One of the last texts I sent to her included these pics Leicester Libraries shared on World Book Day. That’s it. It’s true.

In 2012/13 I was legally homeless, eating out of skips, and having a teeny tiny psychotic break. The library in Worcester was a literal life saver: a warm, safe space where I could just exist without pressure or fear. I wrote, I read, I figured shit out, and I survived. #LibrariesChangeLives

#LibrariesChangeLives yes indeed, thanks to me mam helping me read early, I was into the local library like a small sherbert-lemon propelled missile, reading everything I could get my hands on. Squeaky polished floors, spacious, quiet, everlasting time. PhD & poet now. Thanks, Seacroft!

#LibrariesChangeLives

Some extraordinary stories in reply to @stuhennigan.bsky.social about how #LibrariesChangeLives

Take a look at the replies and also the quotes - and do share your own experience too if you would like to

I’d add a pro tip if you’re travelling with kids - sleeper trains from Paris are brilliant and a real adventure - wake up to flamingos on the salt marshes of Perpignan or lammergeiers the Pyrenees.

Ruth from inspire Nottinghamshire talking about the DSIT funded project

“AI is here, it’s happening and libraries are here to help people navigate what it means for them”

Really powerful message from the Innovating in Trusted Spaces project we’ve been running with @goodthingsfdn.bsky.social with funding from DSIT

Person presenting

At @librariesconnected.bsky.social Innovation Gathering today hearing about @librariesunlimited.bsky.social Champions for Change project - supporting children with SEND through creative outdoor activities - really impactful video from one of the participants

Awesome day with @whitewateractive.bsky.social gorge scrambling and leaping into waterfalls - bit hairy at times with the volume of water (and tbh it was bloody cold!) but a great day - 8 year old loved it too.

Would highly recommend if you’re in Llangollen - a town that’s definitely worth a visit.

Brilliant - really highlights the value of creating communities and connections.

Libraries do a lot of work in this area and if we measure it we can see big impacts:
"A 2.4-point increase in life satisfaction is worth around £39,000 per participant, assuming the improvement lasts for just one year"

An older boy reads to a younger one in a library.

Reading Well, developed by us, #Libraries and @readingagency.bsky.social, provides a cost-effective, preventative programme embedded in public #Libraries.

Reading Well for Children books are available to borrow for free from your local #Library.

www.local.gov.uk/case-studies...

#CMHW26

Awesome stuff - will transform how library services use data to shape and develop their services to most effectively meet community needs.

also has an AI research tool - for example cross linking Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) with library use etc.

Shows in one test service there's a difference in correlation between IMD and borrowing between different age levels (IMD impacts borrowing in children but not older people)

The tool is brilliant - it's in alpha but for example showing for one library service:
• levels of membership and borrowing by residence by LSOA.
• distance people are traveling to borrow / access events etc to help understand where people are struggling to reach

yes - may be my clumsy language - more about where the priority sits.

In the interactive session interesting divergence of views among the sector on whether it's better to share raw messy data or cleaned/ standardised data.

But strong consensus that machine learning / AI can be used to clean up messy data - the question then is do we need to make both accessible?