Children's Promise

Margaret Street, Early Years Librarian (job share)

Izzy Martin, Early Years Librarian (job share)

Hertfordshire Libraries

Showing dedication and tireless effort in promoting the importance of library membership, the love of books and book sharing from the earliest age to families and wider Early Years partnerships across Hertfordshire.
 

Gemma Mccaffery, Area Manager Library Services

Franka Aichour, Assistant Branch Manager, Botwell Green Library

Hillingdon Library Service

Improving services for young people and subsequently reducing the Anti-Social Behaviour in Hayes. This included engaging with focus groups to plan and facilitate a World Café and a participatory budgeting event.
 

James Powell, Communications Manager

Alex Downing, Fundraising and Partnerships Manager

Suffolk Libraries

Supporting a BBC Radio Suffolk campaign to donate new toys for children using the network of 45 libraries to receive toys and organising onward donations in time for Christmas, making a difference to many families and children across Suffolk, and raising awareness of Suffolk Libraries' community impact and wider wellbeing offer.
 

Suzi Wild, Service Development Officer

Amanda Haran, Neighbourhood Engagement and Delivery Officer

Thomas Ley, Neighbourhood Engagement and Delivery Officer

Cheryl Pridgeon, Service Development Specialist: Children and Access and Read Manchester Hub Manager (job share)

Margaret Duff, Service Development Specialist: Children and Access and Read Manchester Hub Manager (job share)

Manchester Libraries

Working tirelessly to deliver an amazing service, targeting some of the most deprived communities in Manchester, including book gifting to communities, work with schools and new initiatives such as ECO/Climate change events, and gifting books for Play Streets events.
 

Deborah Peck

Newham Libraries

Promoting the life-changing benefits for children who read for pleasure and striving to ensure this happens through her work, in particular the development of the year-round LEAP (Libraries Engagement And Participation) programme with local primary schools.
 

Libraries and Culture Team

Inspire: Culture, Learning and Libraries

Showing great resilience and ingenuity to deliver the Little Creatives Early Years programme, that stretched through the Covid crisis and creating resources and a legacy that continues to expand in the 23-26 programmes.

 

Culture and Creativity

Bethan Lee, Principal Librarian

Jennifer Dorrian, Programme and Events officer

Zoe Thomas, Library Assistant

Swansea Library Service

Showing initiative to create new activities and develop resources to enable Swansea Central Library to demonstrate that it is a library of sanctuary and welcoming to new people who find themselves settling in and near Swansea.
 

Alison Wheat, Outreach Librarian, Harrogate Library Team

Library Supervisors, Library Assistants, and library volunteers, North Yorkshire

Being a forward-thinking, ambitious team, passionate about providing impactful library services to their local community. Alongside partner organisations, they commemorated 100 years of Harrogate's War Memorial by producing the multimedia immersive exhibition ‘More Than a Name on a Memorial’.
 

Salma Chand, Library Customer Services Adviser

London Borough of Waltham Forest

Showing a commitment to inclusivity, creativity, and supporting networks reflecting a desire to foster community resilience and growth through library services and diverse engagement opportunities. Her ongoing efforts to implement PEEPS (Parent-Child Early Education Program) and collaborate with local artists exemplify her continuous commitment to community and cultural enrichment.
 

St. Albans Central Library Team

Led by Marco Peveri, Customer Services Supervisor (to November 2023) and Library Manager (from December 2023)

Hertfordshire Libraries

Being highly proactive and working together with a can-do attitude to exploit to the full the resources in the library to support culture, creativity and wellbeing for all residents in the local community, including those at risk of being socially excluded.
 

Fiona Diaper, Outreach Librarian

John Frankland, Outreach Librarian

Christine Holgate, Outreach Librarian

Sharon Houghton, Outreach Librarian

Deborah Thornton, Outreach Librarian

Alison Tutill, Outreach Librarian

Voirrey Whittaker, Outreach Librarian

North Yorkshire Libraries

Displaying innovation, skills, and resilience in delivering the Ey Up! project. Ey Up! came from a seed of an idea when working with the University of Leeds Dialect for Local and Community History Month 2022 and resulted in libraries making lasting connections with partners, volunteers, funders, artists, film makers and participants from hard-to-reach groups.
 

Dorothee Devouge

Danny Middleton

Chris Whitfield

Manchester Libraries

Driving the events programme at Manchester Central Library ensuring the bringing together of diverse audiences and a high quality cultural offer that is full of surprises.

 

Health and Wellbeing

Sarah Smith, Library Development Manager

Kate Elliott, Library Development Officer

Dhurata Loku, Library Development Officer

Margherita Haijima, Library Customer Service Assistant

Diana Manipud, Archives Officer

Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage

Devising ‘Dress to Remember: a dementia-friendly project’, a totally new concept, to support people with dementia and their families, particularly after the pandemic.
 

Cathey Dunning, Library Information Assistant

Halton

Going beyond what is expected in a remarkable way by identifying a local need for a bereavement support for adults and garnering support and partners to create groups in libraries.
 

Rachel Haroulis, Library Outreach Project Officer

Helen Hay, Library Outreach Project Officer

Cumberland

Showing initiative to deliver a significantly improved outreach service to people in supported living in the local area, using VR headsets to improve wellbeing.
 

Peter Waterman, Access and Volunteer Development Manager

Wiltshire

Developing and launched the Warm and Welcome Libraries offer and creating an innovative and wide-reaching health and wellbeing offer.
 

Naomi Peel, Area Library Manager

Jakki Racey, Area Library Manager

Terri Lewis, Area Library Manager

Shelley Hale, District Library Manager

Cambridgeshire

Working closely with their local communities in to proactively engage with and welcome refugees and asylum seekers housed in local hotels.
 

Alison Cassidy, Team Leader

Liverpool

Leading on developing health and wellbeing programmes, creating partnership and organising activities including, weekly health information, social prescribing and digital inclusion drop in sessions, and marketplace events to tie in with National Events.

 

Information and Digital

Kate Smyth, Development Officer

Anna Homer, Development Officer

Liam Marland, Digital Support Assistant

Oldham

Welcoming asylum seekers and helping them access learning, digital, information, and volunteering opportunities at their local library.
 

Kimberley Harston, Librarian

Caroline Wilkinson, Librarian

East Riding

Using technology to widen the reach of public libraries through school engagement and opening up new possibilities for the library service to reach other people and groups within the rural locality.
 

Georgina Carr, Partnership Marketing Programme Owner, Libraries

Lincolnshire Libraries (GLL)

Championing online improvements gaining internal support and external funding to enhance the customers experience through upgraded webpages and the integration of innovative ideas, including a bespoke video sharing customer’s library stories, integrated catalogue functions, and room and activity booking facilities within the website.
 

Luke Oakes, Library Development Manager

Rosie Veitch, Library Development Officer

Ana Silva, Library Development Officer

Paul Smith, District Library Assistant

Cambridgeshire Libraries

Responding to urgent digital inclusion needs helping asylum seekers connect with loved ones across the world and spearheading a national conversation about digital, shaping discourse with the view that to deliver digital inclusion you must deliver the digital trinity of connectivity, kit and skills.
 

Jackie Usher, Team Manager Digital Access Team

Amy Perry, Principal Librarian Digital Access Team

Michelle Carter, Team Librarian

Natasha Jones, Team Librarian

Georgina McLaughlin, Team Librarian

West Sussex Library Service

Identifying the digital training needs of library staff and produce 23 training modules and with the support of library managers across the service, to train all 340 library staff in12 months.
 

Loretta Awauh, Strategic Business Support Manager

Greenwich, Bromley, Wandsworth (GLL)

Creating the business support section in Greenwich and delivered the British Library SILL (Start Up in London Libraries) programme, expanding the service to Bromley and Wandsworth libraries, and leading the very successful ‘Start Up Business Week’ across the three boroughs.

 

Reading

Beth Brown, Adult Services Library Assistant

Guille-Alles Library

Diversifying the library offers and establishing the Lit with Liberate group, creating a place for the island's LGBTQ+ members to feel safe and comfortable discussing the books.
 

Mazhar Iqbal, Librarian 

Ambreen Aziz, Librarian

Becky Longwood, Librarian

Kirklees Libraries

Running the weekly English Talk time sessions which make genuinely life-changing differences to some of the area’s most isolated residents.
 

Hayley Nicholson, Librarian

East Riding

Taking the lead with the Poetry competition, working tirelessly to develop and grow the project, whilst balancing her day-to-day workload.
 

Sarah Sparham, Prison Librarian

Jill Brown, Prison Library Assistant

Delia Armstrong, Prison Library Assistant

Karen Hedley, Prison Library Assistant

HMP Northumberland - provided by Northumberland Library Service

Highlighting the value of the library service across the prison estate and embedding reading for all. 
 

Elizabeth Stanton, Customer Service Development Librarian

Kent Libraries

Engaging with partners and local teenagers to establish a dedicated Teen area within Dartford Library.
 

Justin Burns, Team Manager Books, Reading and Culture

Wendy Drust Principal Librarian Books, Reading and Culture

Jackie Manners, Principal Librarian Wellbeing

Rebecca Robertson, Team Librarian

Jo Moeller, Principal Librarian Enquiries, Learning and Enterprise

Vicki Davey, Principal Librarian Volunteers and Communities

Marion Goaman, Read On Librarian

West Sussex Library Service

Coming together to develop a comprehensive adult literacy offer improving literacy support and providing help for those wanting to learn to read.

 

Vision and Print Impaired People's Promise (VPIPP)

Jackie Burgess, Health & Wellbeing Lead

Guille-Alles Library

Pioneering the Stories on USB service for people with sight problems and blindness.
 

Basil Nankivell, Community Library Manager

Wiltshire

Constantly going beyond what has been expected through the establishment of a Visually Impaired Person’s Reading Group.
 

Gill Nutkins, Stock Librarian

Bromley Libraries (GLL)

Being dedicated to making library services more accessible to people with additional needs.
 

Kelly Christian, Operations Manager

Annette Price, Operational Team Leader

Natasha Hunt, Operational Team Leader

Samantha Meunier, Development and Outreach Officer

Sarah Deacon, Business Improvement and Stock Manager

Bath and North East Somerset

Working with RNIB and library user groups to improve services to people with visual impairments, including staff training, reading groups, and improvements to buildings.
 

Mark Eldridge, Learning Systems and Operations Manager

Derby City Library Service

Improving the offer for blind and partially sighted people throughout Derby City, including setting up one of the first Tech Hubs, specifically for Blind and Partially sighted people in partnership with RNIB in Riverside Library in the Derby Council House.
 

Priten Pancholi, Service Delivery Manager

Leicester City Library Service

Working with the RNIB to improve accessibility to the blind and partially sighted community in Leicester City.