YORKSHIRE LIBRARIES WINS NAG AWARD

The National Acquisitions Group Award for Excellence goes to North Yorkshire Libraries for its “Tough Topics” project.

BDS sponsors the award. It is designed to promote excellence, original thinking and innovation by a library team or individual within the field of acquisitions.

Tough Topics are packs of books and activities chosen by librarians and professionals. They help young children process their emotions about their feelings around life changing events.

The packs aim to encourage children to talk to their parents, carers, grandparents and trusted adults. They contain related practical activities to complement the stories in each pack.

BDS’s Sarah Armitage met members of the project at the NAG Forum held in London in May. Catherine Barlow of North Yorkshire Libraries presented the project in a morning session.

The Award offers a cash prize of £200 of which £100 is donated to a charity of the winners’ choice. North Yorkshire Libraries chose the charity Young Minds (www.youngminds.org.uk).

Helping Children and Families

“We are so delighted to see the importance of our new and exciting project recognised,” said Chrys Mellor, General Manager, North Yorkshire Libraries. “Tough Topics packs are already helping children and families in North Yorkshire navigate the most difficult conversations. We hope that other library authorities will also consider piloting similar packs to support families across the UK.”

Previous winners include the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Public Library Service, the University of Huddersfield, Derbyshire County Council Libraries and Heritage Division, Guildhall Library, Nottingham Trent University, the University of Kent, the eBook Accessibility Audit Team, University of Derby, Bradford Libraries, and Helen Hall of the University of Liverpool.

“BDS took on sponsorship of the 2022 award and we hope to continue to do so,” says Sarah Armitage. “Excellence, original thinking and innovation are features that have made BDS successful, so we look forward to learning more about the projects that are supporting such work in libraries.”

The NAG Forum and Seminar took place at Friends House, Euston in Central London. It ran parallel sessions for academic and public libraries with a shared opening session.

Speakers on the day included Karen Carden, University of the Arts, London, who featured in an interview published in our previous issue of BDSlife magazine. The afternoon session opened with a talk by Nick Poole, CEO of CILIP who has also featured in BDSlife magazine.

“The annual NAG event is always a lively, informative and addresses important issues facing libraries and librarians,” says Sarah. “I enjoyed meeting delegates from both the academic and public library sectors.”

For more information on the NAG, visit: https://nag.org.uk