Hanwell Community Library is looking to grow in 2023 and seeking more local people to help in its running. Additional volunteers are needed to support the daily running of the library as it looks to increase its opening hours as well as providing more services to the local community.
The library, which is located in Cherington Road, has been lending books to residents and serving as a resource to the Hanwell community since 1905. Since 2021, it has been run as a community led project which has seen innovative and exciting new developments come to the library.
This includes a number of new groups and activities including Hanwell Library youth club, Scrabble Club, Knitting Club, Local History Exhibition, Ealing Friendship Centre and more for all ages.
EALING.NEWS spoke to Chloe Daniel, library development worker to find out more about how people can get involved and what plans it has for 2023 and beyond.
How many volunteers do you currently have and how important is having volunteers at Hanwell Community Library?
Hanwell Community Library currently has 66 volunteers. Our volunteers are a wonderful group of kind, enthusiastic and committed people who help to support the day to day running of the Library. Having volunteers is absolutely fundamental in enabling the library to stay open- without them we simply would not be able to ensure that the Library remains open to our community for the current 27 hours per week.
What roles can a volunteer do at the library?
Most of our volunteers are customer facing. They welcome the public into the library and help them with any questions our queries they may have. They also spend time issuing, returning, renewing books, tidying library stock and creating displays.
We also have a small number of volunteers who come in when the library is closed on a Thursday morning to tidy our shelves- making sure all the books are in the correct place and can easily be found.
Finally, we have volunteers who lead our different clubs and events, for example, we have 5 Storytime volunteers who lead our Storytime session for under 5s every Wednesday morning. We are always interested to hear from anyone who would like to run their own club or event in the library.
Is there any age limits and who is your youngest and oldest volunteer?
We do ask for all volunteers to be aged over 16 however there is no upper age limit. We have volunteers of all ages from sixth form students to those who are retired.
How many people visit the library each week?
On average we receive around 300 visitors a week and celebrated receiving over 15,000 visitors throughout 2022.
What plans does the library have for 2023?
We think that 2023 will be an exciting year for Hanwell Library. We are planning to start music and rhyme time weekly session for babies. We also hope that we will be able to increase the range of craft events that we can offer to people of all ages. Additionally, we would like to be able to hold more evening events such as lecturers and guest talks as well as seeing the return of some of our popular 2022 events such as poetry evenings.
We also recognise the importance of helping those who may be digitally excluded and we are aiming to find a way to run drop in IT sessions in the future for those who would like to learn more about using computers.
When is the library currently open and by having more volunteers will it help to increase the days and hours you are open?
The library is currently open for 27 hours a week:
Tuesdays 10-1 then 2-5
Wednesdays 10-1 then 2-5
Thursdays 2-5
Fridays 10-1 then 2-5
Saturdays 10-4
We hope that in 2023, we can meet our aim of being open for 30 hours a week!
