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Business support
An Economic Impact Analysis of the British Library Business and the Intellectual Property Centre National Network carried out in 2019 highlighted the unrivalled value for money and return on investment that libraries deliver, standing at £6.95 generated for every £1 of public funding.
Source
British Library (2019) Demonstrating Entrepreneurship: Libraries as Engines of Economic Growth: A three-year economic impact analysis 2016- 2018.
Libraries as engines of economic growth A three-year economic impact analysis (January 2016 – December 2018) July 2019
Inspire
Digital support
Dorset libraries offer weekly volunteer and employee led digital champion sessions, where customers can drop in and request digital assistance.
Many library employees have completed an embedded digital champion training programme offered in the Council. This training builds staff confidence when supporting those ad hoc customer queries where the customer may not necessarily require specific one to one digital champion support.
Customers that visit the libraries with digital enquiries outside of the drop-in sessions will receive support from embedded digital champion staff or will be offered one to one digital support sessions.
When the pandemic forced the libraries to close due to lockdown legislation, some library colleagues were trained to take calls from customers and continued to offer digital support through the advertised Digital Hotline.
Following the reopening of library buildings, the service evolved into in person support in libraries whilst the online support transferred to the customer service contact centre.
Impact
Library teams have reported examples of how they have digitally supported customers to keep in contact with friends and family, apply for work, access government and organisational resources, find local information and more. In many cases, the customer has learnt new skills and have recommended the support to friends.
Inspire
Libraries as Cultural Hubs
The “Libraries as Cultural Hubs” is an Arts Council England National Lottery funded cultural development programme. The programme was supported by The Friends Groups of Corfe Mullen, Sturminster Newton, Weymouth, Wimborne and Wyke Regis Libraries and our partner The Arts Development Company.
As part of the second phase of this programme, an event was held to focus on Bali Rai’s latest book ‘Mohinder’s War’ - a thrilling World War II adventure set in occupied France, featuring an Indian RAF pilot. Children and young adult author, Bali Rai, has written over 50 books, including titles for Barrington Stoke, a publisher particularly aimed at children who are reluctant, under-confident and dyslexic readers.
The event was promoted to schools, highlighting the diversity aspect of broadening children’s reading to include books featuring diversity, inclusion, and identity.
Another programme initiative included transformative creative writing workshops ‘Rewriting Your Script’, which was aimed at adults with a lack of mental well-being and those diagnosed with mental health conditions.
These workshops were organised by libraries in collaboration with our partners The Arts Development Company, and led by Weymouth Library Writer in Residence, Chris Jury.
The course was supported by Weymouth and Portland Community Mental Health team, who provided a practitioner for every session to support participants. The workshops were evaluated using a self- assessment questionnaire based on the Short Warwick- Edinburgh-Mental Wellbeing Scale at the start and at the end of the course.
Impact
The book event was attended by approximately 850 children from 20 different schools.
Feedback received from the schools included:
- “Children are very keen for us to now get copies of his books - they loved how his knowledge of history tied in so well with their current learning.”
- “The children loved making the connections with their own learning and love of reading"
- “We LOVED this session!”
29 people booked onto the writing workshops, 25 attended 1 or more workshops and 14 people went on to complete the entire course.
93% of participants underwent a statistically significant positive change in their mental wellbeing, 14% went from low mental wellbeing to high mental wellbeing and 57% were lifted from low mental wellbeing to moderate mental wellbeing.
Comments included:
- “The support from the rest of the group and their perspective on my main issue…has been incredibly liberating and therapeutic. And the teaching which has been extraordinarily stimulating has changed so much of my perspective in an amazing way.”
- “The script technique that Chris takes you through enables you to step out of your locked-in way of thinking, out of repeated patterns of thought and behaviours…and galvanises you into DOING. Through the doing of the script you begin doing the changes that transform your life.”
