Gresford and District Community Library

By JAN JONES, Gresford and District Community Library

There’s no denying that we are quite a small library – but, as my Mum used to say, ‘Good stuff comes in little parcels!’ The great thing when it comes to North Wales libraries, is that size really doesn’t matter, because the system for sharing books and other media is so simple and effective.

All the libraries in North Wales – including us – are linked. You can borrow a book from any library in our region and take it to any other library in our region and they will send it back to its home library for you. If there’s a book you want which we haven’t got on our shelves in Gresford, there’s a very good chance that other libraries in North Wales have it on theirs. We can request it for you (or you can go online and request it yourself) and it will be delivered to Gresford for you to collect. Magic!

How does this magic work?

Every Wednesday, the Wrexham Library

Van calls at Gresford and the lovely ‘VanMan’ bring us two boxes of books and takes away the two boxes we’ve got ready for him - full of books people from all over North Wales have requested from us, and books local people have returned that belong to another library; we are sending them home again.

The Library VanMan drives all over Wrexham, visiting libraries to collect and deliver books. The collected boxes go back to Wrexham Library where they are sorted out, ready for the next delivery. It’s not hi-tech, but it’s simple and effective. The majority of requested books are there waiting for the customer two weeks later (sometimes sooner!).

So, Gresford Community Library is actually VERY, VERY BIG – all the millions and millions of books etc in North Wales are waiting there for you…