Lancashire Libraries engaging young people to conceive a new type of creative story
The Lancashire Library Service is working on a project to engage young people and ingeniously recycle the large amount of paper waste that is discarded in the form of newspapers, magazines, meeting minutes, stationery, and the odd old book etc, and avoid filling up landfill sites needlessly.
The aim is to create ‘bags for lit’ which will be fashionable, marketable and practical bags which will allow library users to carry around their library choices, wrapped in words, fiction and stories in a coolly branded and designed way.
Working with the Environment Directorate, local youth groups and services, Lancashire County Council intends to promote social inclusion and create a youth-led design and manufacturing scheme to encourage local enterprise and create a cost effective method for sustainable recycling in the area.
The key outcomes that the project aims to achieve are as follows:
- To increase awareness of public library services
- To increase awareness of environmental work within the community
- To make literature and writing an opportunity for all
- To demythologise the library
- To promote reading as a fashionable activity
- To transform writing into collectible design
- To champion young people’s creativity
- To generate humour in urban moments
- To create method of reaching audiences who don’t normally ready
- To build strong cultural and cross-sector partnerships
Stewart Parsons, Cultural Youth Offer-Project manager and Founder of Get it Loud in Libraries said “I think that this project has lots to offer young people and the wider community who will benefit from not just a cleaner environment in the long term, but by creatively engaging with the library service. We hope to foster long-term local sustainability and encourage our communities to think differently about reading, writing and literature”.