Claire Lewis of Monmouthshire Libraries and Information Service is one of seven winning applicants for The Carnegie Library Lab programme.
Each of the participants will receive funding of between £5,000 and £15,000 to develop an innovative project in their library service. They will also have access to a new programme of online learning material to encourage innovation and leadership, be provided with a mentor and have the opportunity to take part in networking and learning events.
Claire’s library project The Ideas Garage will create a community led coding space to be used by people who want to gain and share skills and experience of coding to create and develop websites/games to increase their employability.
Applications for Carnegie Library Lab were invited throughout September. The Carnegie UK Trust received 80 applications from library staff looking for support for their innovative projects. The winning applicants were selected by an expert Advisory Group including representatives from the Trust, the Society of Chief Librarians, CILIP, Arts Council England, Scottish Library and Information Council, the Local Government Management Agency in the Republic of Ireland, CyMAL and Libraries NI.
Douglas White, Head of Advocacy, Carnegie UK Trust said: “We received a high volume of excellent applications to take part in Carnegie Library Lab and we are incredibly grateful to all of those who took the time and effort to apply. We would like to thank our expert Advisory Group for navigating their way through some tough decisions to select the winning applications. We are delighted with the projects that have been selected to participate in the programme and we are looking forward to working with all of our new Carnegie Partners over the next 18 months.”
Ciara Estell, President of Society of Chief Librarians for England, Wales and Northern Ireland said: “I was really impressed by the standard of applications for the Carnegie Library Lab. The selected Carnegie Partners will have first class support and training to enable them to develop innovative solutions for public libraries.
monmouthshirelibraries.wordpress.com 