Family Tree Maker at Heywood Library

Heywood Library's Family History Group enjoyed a very interesting and informative introduction to using Family Tree Maker by Florence Sedman at their first meeting of the year on 4 January.

Florence brought in her very impressive scroll - which was way too long for our tables! She also used her laptop to show the group how to create a very professional tree including photographs and annotations.

Heywood Library Family History Group meetings are on the first Monday of each month. The next meeting is on Monday 1 Feb at 2.30pm.

Local History meetings at Heywood Library

Heywood Library has a Local History meeting on the third Monday of each month.

The next meeting is on 18 Jan 2010 at 6pm and will feature a talk by Sheila Hill on “A History of Queen’s Park.”

At the February meeting we shall be looking at Ancestry.com and using the Microfilm Reader to look at Census returns.

The meetings are free and there is no need for you to book ahead.

Table-Top Tournament

We celebrated the official opening of the Phoenix Centre on Saturday 14 November by organising a free table-top football tournament through a company called Goalden Events.

This appealed to all members of the family: sisters and brothers, mums and dads, grannies and granddads, uncles and aunties all took part. Katherine Kelly, who plays Becky on Coronation Street also joined in, as did the local Community Police.

Between tournaments visitors were encouraged to try a light-hearted quiz, to answer some of the questions you had to be sure to visit the library.

Look out for Goalden Events and your chance to compete in table football at the official opening of Darnhill Library on the 12 December!

Bedtime Story Week 27th May – 3rd June

by Irene Peachey

In conjunction with the launch of Bookstart’s Bedtime Story Week, we had some fantastic events in Heywood throughout the week.

Thursday 28th May
The week began with a joint event at The Yard, the youth and children’s centre on Darnhill, just behind Darnhill Library. The family day event was organized by Woodland Sure Start Children’s Centre. I work on many joint partnership events with Woodland CC and I was invited along to see many of the families I work with at Darnhill who I have not seen for some time due to the library’s refurbishment.

As well as taking along library and Bookstart information, which I was able to share with the families, we had a great story and singing time together.

Free transport for library users

With Heywood Library being closed for a major refurbishment, we are offering a FREE community transport service, with complimentary return trips from Heywood Library to Darnhill Library.

From Monday 18 February until further notice, a coach will depart from outside Heywood Library at 10.30 am every Monday, returning at 11.30 am. The service is being provided in partnership with New Heart for Heywood Community Transport.

You are welcome to use our other libraries

We are also encouraging customers to use any of the other 16 libraries in the borough during the temporary closure, while the 100 year old Grade 2 listed building has extensive improvement work . The nearest libraries to Heywood are Darnhill, Norden, Middleton and Spotland.

Heywood and Wheatsheaf Libraries — temporary closures

The Wheatsheaf Library will be closed for re-carpeting from Wednesday 7th November 2007 for approximately 3 weeks.

Books and other items on loan can be returned to the Special Services unit which is situated opposite the main Library entrance in the Wheatsheaf Centre.

Heywood Library will be closed from Monday 12th November 2007 for approximately six months for extensive refurbishment works.

Some of the stock from Heywood Library, notably Best sellers and Graphic Novels, are being temporarily transferred to Darnhill Library, which will have a temporary extension to its opening hours.:

Darnhill Library opening hours from 12th November 2007:

Monday	9.30-1	2-7.30pm
Tuesday	9.30-1	2-5.30pm
Wednesday	9.30-12.30pm
Thursday	9.30-1	2-5.30pm
Friday	9.30-1	2-5.30pm
Saturday	9.30-1	2-4pm

Your custom is still welcome!

Items issued at Heywood and the Wheatsheaf in the run up to the closures have extended loan periods so that they are not due back until the libraries are expected to re-open. Fines are not incurred on days when libraries are closed.

Borrowers from Heywood and the Wheatsheaf Libraries are welcome in all libraries in the Borough. Your barcoded library card lets you borrow or reserve items from any of our libraries.

We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience.

Building works update

More news on the works that are going to be done in some of our libraries this autumn.

Work will be delayed slightly at Heywood Library. The delay is because of some good news: there are plans for some development in Heywood Town Centre which will definitely involve the library in some way. Details are currently being finalised so we aren't sure precisely how the library fits into the plans so we've decided to hang fire until details are available. We want to avoid going through the expense and disruption of getting work done in the short term that will have to be undone, or which becomes redundant, in a year or so's time. Once these plans have been finalised we'll be able to see what modifications, if any, we have to make to the library's refurbishment plan and, if necessary, get listed building consent for the work to be done. Realistically, the work will be beginning in late autumn rather than at the end of next month as hoped.

The work at Balderstone and Spotland libraries will be going ahead next month as planned. We will also be doing some work on the accessibility of Alkrington Library later this autumn, dates to be confirmed. At this stage we don't know whether or not we will need to close Alkrington Library while the work is going on.

Building works

Services at some of our libraries will be disrupted this autumn due to essential building work:

Balderstone Library will be closed for two weeks from Monday 1st October 2007 while toilet facilities for disabled people are being installed. This will require the temporary removal of the counter and the relocation of the Library Online PCs elsewhere within the building. The library will re-open for business on Monday 15th October.

Heywood Library will be closed from Monday 15th October 2007 for major building work following on from the repairs to the roof earlier this year. The library will re-open in the early Spring of 2008.

We apologise for the inconvenience this will cause to our customers. Please note that all our customers are welcome in any of our libraries. If you've joined any of our libraries your card will let you borrow or reserve items anywhere in the Borough.

An Autumn of upheaval!

It's going to be a busy autumn! We're finalising details of some activities for local and national programmes which we'll be telling you about shortly, as well as providing the "usual" wide range of learning and reading events and activities. On top of all that we're preparing for some major works in some of our libraries:

• We're finishing the preparations for moving Langley Library from its current building into its new home in the nearby Children's Centre.
• Balderstone and Spotland libraries will be having work done to install toilet facilities for disabled people.
• Heywood Library will be closed at the beginning of October for major refurbishment work lasting about six months.

We don't have firm dates for these yet, we'll be letting you know once they're confirmed.