Barrow Library

About

Barrow Group Libraries; Barrow Central, Askam, Barrow Island, Dalton, Ormsgill, Roose, Walney. Love Libraries <3

Story

Barrow Library offers itself as a community resource. Barrow Library has full accessibility and is DDA compliant. It has access ramps, wide access ways & induction loops. The smaller IT suite of 6 PCs is in a quiet area and can be discretely screened off if required. There is a projector for larger display and group teaching. An additional suite of 10 PCs is also available for customers to use during the library’s extensive opening hours.

As a UK Online centre, Barrow Library has developed an Employment Toolkit containing template CVs, cover letters, lists of useful websites, local employers details, guides on ‘Interview Tips’; ‘Getting A Job In Tough Times & on ‘Volunteering’.
Appropriate Internet resources are widely used including Universal Jobmatch, GovUK, NHS Direct and other job search/CV broadcasting sites.
Our public computers home page has a link to ‘learn my way’ for our customers to link directly into UK Online basic online courses.

The library runs many computer courses throughout the week for people needing help with basic computer skills, increasing employability skills and building on existing knowledge. There is also a hugely successful Silver Surfers’ session every week for people over the age of 50. This is mainly manned by volunteers who have been through the basic skills or silver surfer sessions themselves.

The library has experienced staff and volunteers who are committed to caring for their clients’ diverse needs.

There is a Cumbria Library website (www.cumbria.gov.uk/libraries) that offers many online resources including ‘who else writes like’, theory test, Britannica online, Ancestry, Find my Past, public library online which gives our library customers access to a selection of e-books, and Zinio giving our customers free access to a wide range of magazines

Barrow Library offers itself as a community resource. It has access ramps, wide access ways & induction loops. The smaller IT suite of 6 PCs is in a quiet area and can be discretely screened off if required. There is a projector for larger display and group teaching. An additional suite of 10 PCs is also available for customers to use during the library’s extensive opening hours.

As a UK Online centre, Barrow Library has developed an Employment Toolkit containing template CVs, cover letters, lists of useful websites,
Our public computers home page has a link to ‘learn my way’ for our customers to link directly into UK Online basic online courses.

The library runs many computer courses throughout the week for people needing help with basic computer skills, increasing employability skills and building on existing knowledge. There is also a hugely successful Silver Surfers’ session every week for people over the age of 50. The library has experienced staff and volunteers who are committed to caring for their clients’ diverse needs.

Mission

To maintain for future generations, Caitlin Moran's statement about libraries "A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life-raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead"

Products

Books, audio books, Internet, computers, E-books, magazines, computer courses, photocopying, faxing, Large Print books, British Wireless for the blind, Macmillan volunteer signposting, coffee machine, newspapers, NOW cards, bus passes, reminiscence boxes, dementia resource bags, story sacks, author events, children's activities, reading challenges, reading groups, local studies, ancestry, zinio, DVDs, job seeker friendly, universal jobmatch, learn my way.