To ask you how to encourage more people to use the library?

Engage with the local schools, encourage borrowing rather than buying.

Kids craft morning on Saturdays, book clubs, summer holiday story time. It needs to become a hub again and an easy fall back option for parents with young children (who will then hopefully come to love books)

I started going got mine when I had my daughter and they did baby groups, then toddler groups for songs and book readings.

We now regularly go to lego and craft club and DD will go most weeks to change her books.

They also do book clubs and knitting club a couple of evenings a week. Once in a while they have volunteers do repairs on household items.

I also think some special events would help, like hosting a clothes/toy swap.

Adult only sessions, book clubs, evening craft groups, longer opening hours (even if just one or two evenings a week). Peace and quiet time would be great. Our local library is basically just a crèche now.

My local church was desperate to get people through the door post lockdown and it’s a historic building dating back to the 1500s but nobody was attending and it was threatened with closure. They put a small but fully functioning post office in as there wasn’t one within 3 miles, it’s staffed mostly with retired volunteers with a 15 hour paid role over seeing it. Then they created a small cafe ( no noisy machines) with 2 paid roles of 15-20 hours and everything wiser is volunteer run. They offer community lunches and cake/toasted. They turn over about £4-6k a month just in the cafe. They do weekly craft groups, chair yoga, bereavement cubs, creative writing clubs, history groups, and they have even produced and published their own guides for local history and walks etc. They run half term activities and makers markets and a community drop in for benefits advice , nhs health clinics run from there too etc. all money raised goes back into running the building and the community projects like free half term activities. They get 50 visitors minimum daily just for the cafe and groups, the church attendance has gone up in direct relation to the care and groups.

Our local library was purpose built about 15 or so years ago. It doubles as a mini museum with local artefacts and history . It was even built with a roman mosaic in mind (it was found when Cadburys first built a chocolate factory in the town in the 1920s).
There is a multi purpose function space upstairs (comedian Russell Howard once did a gig there as part of the regular comedy club).
Citizens Advice and other organisations hold outreach sessions there. There's also desks where you can speak to a member of customer service staff from the council.

It takes two incomes to run most households so if you are only open during key working hours the % of the population you are able to attract an audience from is tiny.

If you could make yourself part of the early evening ( post school and work) cafe culture that some places have you would probably do much better in terms of footfall.

Our local libraries did a detailed survey and doing things like that. Running the local citizens advice center from there. Having rooms to hire. Exhibitions and events ( quiet ones) Functional clean toilets and accessible parking were all very high on the list of things that would increase visits.

Could you hold events to attract people? Santas grotto (each child receives a library card?)

I misread that as Grenache.

Annual 2 week shut down - in the summer. There is plenty of stuff to do outside so don't generally go to the library much. Either that or Christmas holiday period - I don't think people would expect the library to be open over this period.

Our library's main users seem to be:

• secondary school students studying for their exams.
• children with families (such as us) going to get books or going to the organised children activities (rhyme time, storytime, crafts etc.) another library local to us has a big box of Lego and Duplo, and a table with crayons and colouring sheets which the kids love to play with.
• elderly and specific meetup groups such as knitting club, chess club, games club etc.

Creating spaces and opportunities for these groups could help bring people in.

Other libraries also offer services for the homeless or low income such as an advice and legal hub, a donation box for necessary supplies, and a warm space where they can sit, read the newspaper etc.

Running a bookclub with a small entry fee.

Open until at least 8 several times a week and at weekends.

Books! High quality books that I want to read. Not Mills and Boon, not the carefully curated woke issue du jour selection. Access to recent books without having to wait a year. Recent cook books.

Things I don’t want:
Activity groups
political messaging

I don’t use our county’s physical libraries because they are never open and not near me. I do rate their online service for magazines. I don’t use their ebooks as they aren’t compatible with kindles and I don’t let any other screens upstairs.

Make it an actual quiet library rather than a child minding, toy shop, soft bloody play, hugely noisy facility. Or have adult only quiet times, maybe see next point….
Open in evenings.
My local library is small but never stocks new or recent releases so you have to pay £1.20 per book to be able to get them from libraries further away to read them. It very quickly adds up. I get having to contribute something for the transporting, but it’s literally every book I want to read so it’s easier and a lot of the time cheaper to just look on Amazon kindle/unlimited for free or 99p deals.

Warm, comfy seating, accessible toilet, free WiFi and decent coffee.

Easy to return and renew. I stopped using the library because I kept getting fines.

I did take the children when young but the selection was poor. It was possible to order in any titles, but part of the joy for a chikd is looking through the racks and finding something.

You have 3 main audiences -
Retired community - clubs/company/social. So book club, knit and natter etc. Hot drinks would be a winner.
parents - child friendly groups, activities like Lego, special events at Xmas, Easter. Summer hol activities.
Readers - good range of books, easy ordering of books, displays of new books, author events.
If you get a decent number of these groups in, make them part of your community and then ask them to spread the word.
Adverise events in local shops/schools. Build a community hub.

Many moons ago our library had meeting rooms which were used for evening classes. I don't know if yours has space.

Another option again depending on space ( on walking routes, local history, anything to do with Egypt, etc etc)

I'm thinking of peripherals but in terms of getting people to actually use the library itself advertise more new and popular books, better low light seating spaces to read away from the "stacks". Do libraries still hold literacy lessons?

I also think the difficulty will be getting staff for these events - but libraries need to be open for longer as people live different lives these days.

I used to use the library so much, but hardly go now. The quality of the fiction for both children and adults is really poor. I will only take out non-fiction for myself now as a result. I miss being able to return books out of hours through a letterbox. I like that our library supports local crafts people by selling their products and we have the usual storytime/kids activities. It's a pleasant place, just very hard to find the books we'd like to read - and no, they're not available to request either.

Hide a geocache in the library.

A good baby and toddler group, a free 30-45min class where you sing / play games and of course read a book each week. It needs someone extroverted to lead the session. Maybe some toddler toys too.

Can the library hold a breastfeeding support session too?

Comfy chairs, a rug, chairs for kids to sit on.

Different themes and decorations changes

In the summer holidays a read challenge for kids with stickers.

Midday natter and knit / read for adults who might be lonely

Lego club - you can have Lego out Thursdays 4-6pm

I think focusing on what the community needs and uses might be good place to start.

I never know when the library is open. It’s a faff to get the information from the council website. Go to the website search for libraries, look for my own library, then look at the hours, then they are often wrong. The council website doesn’t feel up to date therefore it doesn’t feel reliable. If I looked now, I bet there would be information about an event in 2023.

They are open at the most inconvenient times. When my dc were at secondary school there was one half an hour a week they could get to the library. If they walked fast. There must be a thousand secondary school children walking right past twice a day. A lot of them would use it if they felt like it was for them. And if it was open.

Actually both my girls went in July to volunteer for the summer reading challenge and nobody got back to them.

Over the summer on days my DH was watching the kids I needed a wfh place so often went to the library. Usually go to coffee shops. So I think working spaces are needed where it’s ok to take calls.

it’s a shame that it doesn’t seem very well advertised - you have to go there to find out what’s going on

Our library (in Norfolk) has a machine outside where you can scan your library card and get in out of hours. So I can go and take out and return books even when it’s closed which is (imo) bloody brilliant! We’re only a village but it has so much going on and there’s a crochet blanket people can just sit and add a few rows to, adult colouring books and at some parts of the day free teas and coffees. There’s obviously the technology available for other library services to have the out of hours opening if someone can be persuaded to pay for it.

I visit my local library with my grandchildren a lot. It is closed one and a half days during the week which is a pain.
I think it has volunteers as well as paid staff. There are no toilets for the public which would be helpful. It has Lego, some toys, provides information about local resources. There are craft activities and several different clubs.
There’s singing for younger children, activities relating to seasonal events.
It’s a really good local resource as it is (it is also free which is important for a lot of people) but could be improved further. I think it’s limited by lack of funding though.

Mine did a mother and baby group singing nursery rhymes and I attended a couple of those. They also do children's activities in half term, took my son to one about coding

Become food bank collection point (i.e. where people drop off donations) - we've found that brings in lots of footfall, it's actually been quite transformative.