by Admin | 11 Sep 2016 | events, news |
Despite the awful drizzly weather, Cricklewooders were out in force yesterday to enjoy the stalls, live music, networking and entertainment on offer at this year’s annual Cricklewood Festival. Cricklewood Library had a stall enthusiastically staffed by volunteers Sonja, Annie, Steven, Mary and Wendy, signed up a few new subscribers to our email list, met some new friends and people we’re eager to start working with. A few exciting ideas emerged from discussions at the festival, so watch this space for more info on that very soon. Some pictures below give a flavour of the day.
A big thanks from all of us on the library team to the organisers, Danny and Osita.
by Admin | 13 Jul 2016 | books, donation |
The American School in London has been a very generous supporter of our efforts to re-launch the new Cricklewood Library. We wish to specifically thank Joanne Morris (Lower School Librarian) and Karen Field (Head Librarian) for the donation of many quality books and resources that will benefit library patrons of all ages. These materials are either duplicates, donations they do not require or resources that are no longer needed in the school libraries and include many current titles in very good condition.
In addition, we wish to thank Brandon Block, Director of Service Learning, who has shown great interest and support and is looking for ways that the ASL service learning programmes could be of help to Cricklewood Library. In the past ASL volunteer students, families and staff have participated in Community Service Days when they painted, installed shelving and helped to maintain the outside of the old library. ASL Parents Melissa Janssen and Lisa Kolaja, Coordinators of The Friends of the Libraries at ASL, have also expressed interest in identifying ways that they can support Cricklewood Library.
One of the most significant contributions has come in the form of IT equipment that is no longer needed at ASL but will be of tremendous use to the Library. These desktop computers and laptops will be used at the circulation desk for the library management systems, and also by library patrons. We would like to give a special word of thanks to Ash Lazar, Technology Manager, and Russell Layton, former Director of Technology, who have made possible the donation of this useful IT equipment.
In-kind support and donations such as these items gifted by the American School in London, a UK charitable institution in its own right, will enable Cricklewood Library to become a vibrant and state-of-the-art centre for all of the community. We welcome and look forward to further collaboration with the ASL community.
These donations have been made possible by a member of the Friends of Cricklewood Library who has used his contacts at ASL to help to facilitate these donations. We hope that other supporters of the Friends of Cricklewood Library will consider how their personal knowledge and professional relationships might benefit the new library.
by Admin | 2 Jul 2016 | books, news |
Friends of Cricklewood Library committee member, Mary Langford spotted these enthusiastic browsers at the pop-up library in Willesden Green station yesterday. The pop up library serves for now until we re-open the community lending library on our site on Olive Road opposite Gladstone Park. The building works are underway and we hope to be in before too long.
You can support our work by donating books to the pop-up library. No need to ask permission – just drop your books off the next time you’re passing through. If you have a large number of books, we are also happy to arrange for collection. Please just email us on info@cricklewoodlibrary.org.uk.
If you’d like to donate cold hard cash, we’re also keen on that – head over to our donations page and help us rebuild the library sooner.
by Admin | 29 Jun 2016 | events, local, news |
Come along and have your say at the Brent Culture and Community Libraries Forum this coming weekend. This is your chance to influence what goes on in Brent’s libraries, to take part in some free and fun activities, and to meet the organisers from various budding community libraries in the borough, including the team from Cricklewood Library. There will also be an opportunity to explore the treasures of the Brent archive and find out more about the area you live in. And prizes apparently! What’s not to like?
We are always on the lookout for new volunteers to get involved in getting our library off the ground, so we’d be delighted to see you there.
by Admin | 3 Jun 2016 | books, local, reading |
I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this lately, but it seems like everywhere I turn, I bump into another book group. I’m a member of one myself, and have been for several years. I’m not quite sure how it started, but it was certainly on the go before I joined, when I was invited in by one of the Anson Mums, and I enthusiastically agreed. We’ve been meeting on a more or less monthly basis, since I joined, for about 5 years, and we’ve read a huge number of books together, ranging from a non-fiction travel book by Sara Wheeler, through classics like Mapp and Lucia, and taking in some excellent books in translation that, frankly, I would never have tried had they not been suggested by another member of the group.
The first recorded reading groups were among women working in factories in the nineteenth century. The current movement gained momentum in the 1980s, becoming mainstream with the launch of Oprah’s Book Group and making it onto UK TV courtesy of Richard and Judy in 2004. And now, according to research undertaken a few years ago, there are tens of thousands of groups meeting regularly in the UK reading everything from literary classics to technical manuals! Celebrity recommendations can be life-changing for authors – the Richard and Judy/Oprah effect was a huge factor in propelling sales of 2012’s Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn into the 8m copy-plus bracket. (Tip – you don’t have to be female to be in a book group – blokes can join/start one too!).
It’s common for libraries nowadays to run book groups, and we hope that Cricklewood Library, when it opens, will join those ranks. In the meantime, if you’d like to get a book group going and all you need are like-minded readers, we can help you find them. Drop us a line on our info@cricklewoodlibrary.org.uk address and we’ll link you up with others who’re keen to get reading socially as well. It can be a lot of fun – sometimes we joke that our group is more about the wine and snacks than the literary chat, but you can run yours in a more (or less!) highbrow way if you want.
There are even children’s book groups nowadays, and we’ll be back with another post shortly on this phenomenon and other tips on getting your kids enthused about reading.
For suggestions on choosing your first book, why not head over to Love Reading or Good Reads for some inspiration? I’ve shared our reading list on Good Reads in the footer of this message so you can see what’s in our cupboards, so to speak.
Good luck and happy reading!
