AlburyCity Libraries:community hubs

Albury LibraryMuseum

Albury LibraryMuseum opened to the public 27 July 2007– A formal and community celebration

attracting 7000 visitors to the opening

day– A key element in Albury’s cultural

precinct

The Building

Designed by Architects ARM – Design concept of a building for the 21st

century but drawn from the regions history– Design inspirations include the Railway bridge

across the Murray River, and the Kiewa street landscaping representing the Murray River landscape

– Designed to be a community multi-use space: a community hub

Albury LibraryMuseum

• Free– To enter– To borrow books– To use technology – To access many programs and services

• Open 7 days– Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am – 7pm– Tuesday, Friday 10am – 5pm– Saturday 10am – 4pm– Sunday 12noon – 4pm

How are we faring - quantitatively Key statistics 2006 -07

Pre LibraryMuseum

2007 – 08Albury LibraryMuseum

2011 - 12Albury LibraryMuseum

Floor space 1500 sqm –(combined previous Library & Museum)

3000 sqm 3000 sqm

Visitors 150,000 – Library9,000 - Museum

247,000 211,000

Loans 180,000 268,000 254,000

Exhibitions 6 per year 16 per year 17 per year

Opening hours 42hrs Museum over 7 days60hrs – Library over 6 days

51 hrs – over 7days 51 hrs over 7 days

How are we faring - qualitatively• A wide ranging demographic visits the LibraryMuseum,

although many more women than men, and more professional people than trades people. There is a wide ranging mix of ages visiting the facility – including the 13 – 25 year old age group, which traditionally move away from visiting cultural institutions.

• Overwhelmingly our visitors like and our proud of the LibraryMuseum – its architecture, ambience, community nature, accessibility and range of services, collections, exhibitions and programs.

Library zone• A range of materials for lending including:

– Fiction books in genre categories– Large print books– Non-fiction books– Magazines and newspapers– DVD’s, Videos, Books on CD– E-Library: Kindles for loan, e-audio and e-

books– Home Energy Saver kits

Library zone

• Specific areas for all visitors – Kidspace – Young Adult area

• Comfortable seating throughout• Newspapers to read

Infozone• Skilled staff to provide assistance• Local & family history materials:

– Books, Border Mail on microfilm, access to the Museum heritage collection

• Information materials • Small exhibitions• Study areas • Small LibraryMuseum shop

Infozone technology

• 20 Personal computers available for free use to the public for accessing the internet, word processing, researching family history and scanning.

• 2 computers have adaptive technology• A free wireless network is available

throughout the building. • Internet awareness sessions

Exhibitions

• Exhibition spaces are located throughout the building– Main temporary exhibition space allows for a

changing exhibitions program to cater for a wide range of ages and interests, including national touring exhibitions and home grown exhibitions

– Glass display case as you enter the building– Lane Gallery exhibitons

FROCK STARS: Inside AustralianFashion Week

Crossing Place Exhibition

• Permanent exhibition telling the story of Albury from first contact with the Wiradjuri traditional owners of the land to the city of today.

• Themes of indigenous ownership, immigration, industry, war, transport and people are explored.

• Bonegilla, Hume Dam and the Uiver story are just some of the features.

Community spaces

• Meeting rooms for hire– Upstairs rooms with technology, kitchen

access– Downstairs activity rooms – Community and commercial rates

• Community exhibition wall

New Lavington Library – one stop shop

The new Lavington Library will aim to provide excellence in service provision across Library and Council customer services. The centrally located facility will offer a ground floor library and council customer service centre in North Point Tower, Lavington, providing a modern and enhanced space for the Lavington community, double the size at 450sqm, of the current library.

Key features of the facility include:• One Stop Shop for all Council Services including payments,

applications, requests and enquiries.• 12 Public access computers and Wifi throughout the facility• Libraries collection of 22,000 books, magazines, newspapers, CD’s,

DVD’s and e-books

New Lavington Library – one stop shop

AlburyCity Libraries programs and services

• Service to housebound library members• Programs for children and families including baby

bounce, toddler time and storytime sessions, after school reading clubs

• Exhibition openings• Book Clubs• Literary film nights• School visits and programs

Write around the Murray Festival

• Annual Write around the Murray Festival ,4 – 8 September 2013 : a signature arts based annual festival in Albury that celebrates writing, reading, illustrating and storytelling

Aims• To provide skill development opportunities and generally promote

and encourage local writers, storytellers and illustrators • To support the programs of the Albury LibraryMuseum and

Lavington Library and develop new audiences for these venues• To provide innovative opportunities for the invoking and telling of

community stories and memories• To develop and grow audiences for the festival as part of regional

Cultural Tourism strategy

Write around the Murray Festival

• The current mix of events has been constant over the past 3 years including: – – a K – 12 schools program, – a literary lunch, a festival dinner with keynote speaker and a

celebrity wood-fire oven bake– writing and illustrations workshops, including a master class and

a young adult writing workshop and one –on –one mentoring sessions

– book launches and a Book of the festival– panel sessions on topics such as the future of news and news

making and the road to publishing a book– indigenous story telling sessions, writing competitions and

poetry evenings– a range

• .

Partnership Projects

Potential partnership projects

Projects that encourage life-long learning through fostering literacy

• Poetry Object Project: Young writers and their teachers submit poems and photographs about objects that are special to them.

Participants in The Poetry Object created beautiful installations to display their poems and photographs at their school or at their local library.

• Books for Babies packs – containing a picture/activity book for very young babies, literature on the value of literacy , a library card and program detail for the City Library all housed in a Library Bag and given to each new parent and baby.

• Short play competition being planned for 2014 Write around the Murray Festival