Mullingar Library

Westmeath libraries encourage people of all ages to join

A new national advertising campaign is asking everyone to take a closer look at what their local authority library has to offer.

Westmeath Libraries and all public libraries around the country are joining in the campaign, which is running for the next four weeks across radio, cinema, TV on demand, digital and social.

The aim of the campaign is to encourage people of all ages to join and use the library.

Speaking about the campaign, Mary Stuart, County Librarian said, “People who use the library regularly know how great it is. But there are those who haven’t been in a while or don’t visit very often.”

“We want everyone to take a closer look at their library, to see beyond what they thought it was, and find out about all the amazing services we offer – completely free.”

Libraries and Librarians take the starring roles in the campaign; the libraries in the adverts are real libraries and the people in the advert are real librarians.

The ‘Take a Closer Look’ campaign was devised by the Libraries Development Unit of the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) with the support of the Department of Rural and Community Development. It is part of a wider national strategy to increase library use in Ireland.

At present, around 16% of the Irish population are library members. The ‘Our Public Libraries’ strategy aims to increase that to 30% by 2022.

Take a look at the ‘Take a Closer Look’ advert at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZOvJVnHhY0 or drop into your local library. You can find out what’s happening by following us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WestmeathLibrary/ or visiting www.westmeathcoco.ie/Library