North Lanarkshire libraries are holding their annual health and wellbeing week from Monday after moving the event online for this year while their buildings remain closed.
Starting on Monday and running from February 8-14, the Love Life Love Libraries event consists of a busy programme of interactive sessions ranging from reading sessions and quizzes to baby Bookbug and advice sessions for older people, taking place on social media or through meetings platform Webex.
The programme includes the return of the libraries’ much-loved Bookbug Online sessions for children and parents, with an interactive selection of songs, rhymes and stories taking place on Facebook and YouTube at 11am on Tuesday.
A new Bookbug group for babies aged up to 12 months, who were born during lockdown, is also launching on Webex with an introductory session at 10am on Friday, February 12; and organisers say: “This will become a weekly event, with a 30-minute standard session and chance to chat with other parents afterwards.”
Quiz fans can test their general knowledge in the popular “new tricks” quiz on Tuesday afternoon, and can register via the festival website to book their attendance on Webex.
Librarians will also run a “chatty cafe” on Wednesday at 2pm, beginning with the themes of family history and travel, saying: “We’ve all lived in very challenging circumstances in recent times and feelings of isolation have been easy to encounter – you can join us simply to chat with a friendly face for a short while.”
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The programme also includes a session for older people entitled “six legal must-dos” at 11am on Thursday; plus a podcast launch and social media sessions featuring wellbeing tips for families and downloadable worksheets, on themes including cooking, Lego and nature.
Further events include next Friday’s launch of this year’s Read Well NL challenge, asking book lovers to read for six minutes per day, a shared reading session at 11am on Thursday and a week of video build-up to the Valentine’s Day speed dating event culminating in a Sunday vote on romantic reads.
E-services librarian Chris Wilson said: “CultureNL Libraries have helped the local community with health and wellbeing for several years by organising and running Love Life Love Libraries.
“With Covid-19 proving to be a factor in everyone’s wellbeing recently, we felt that now more than ever was an important time to continue this event, in an online setting.”
Visit https://culturenl.co.uk/lovelife to see the whole programme and to book for events, and follow the #LoveLifeLoveLibraries hashtag on Twitter throughout the week.
