Bull headlines concert at Explore York for 10th birthday celebrations

Barbara Swinn was speaking as the mutual society celebrated the 10th year since it took over running the city's libraries and archives.

Today, its flagship building, York Explore in Museum Street, had an open mic all afternoon with a dozen performers singing and giving spoken performances and a design your own printed t-shirt workshop.

T-shirts drying at the printing workshop (Image: Newsquest)

The celebrations will culminate this evening when York Explore will be transformed into a music gig venue with a bar and a ticket-only concert by a host of performers, headlined by local band Bull.

Holly Beer of Explore York and local band Bull and details about tonight's concert (Image: Newsquest)

The library will open on time tomorrow as usual  after volunteers and staff led by chief executive Jenny Layfield carry out a late-night re-transformation.

Barbara, head of audience development and engagement, said libraries had come a long way from the days of being just about books and keeping quiet.

“They are vital to the city,” she said. “If you take away a library, you have taken the soul out of a place. Libraries are a catalyst. It could be where you discover your future.”

Barbara Swinn (Image: Newsquest)

She said people use York's libraries for visiting their cafés, attending a wide range of clubs and events, using them as warm spaces in winter, socialising, going online and attending education classes as well as borrowing books, and don’t need a library card to enter their buildings.

She said libraries can spark a child’s imagination, introduce children to the pleasure of reading through activities as well as books themselves and open the door for people of all ages to a subject or interest that could lead to their career.

Libraries are also a place where people who live alone or have experienced major bereavement or trauma can come to sit quietly without anyone telling them to leave or expecting them buy anything and be within the community again.

Explore York wants to work with the community to provide what the community wants and needs and the future is with in partnership with other organisations, she said.

Their buildings house many different community organisations. Some libraries are in buildings with other organisations such as the ones in York Stadium and New Earswick Folk Hall.

All York’s libraries and reading cafés had celebration events yesterday, including seed sowing, bunting workshops, singalongs, coffee mornings, birthday parties and book and craft sales.

Later this year, the new Clifton Explore library learning centre and garden is expected to open on the completely transformed former Clifton Without Junior School site.

It will join similar Explore centres in Acomb and Tang Hall, 11 other libraries around the city as well as reading cafes in Homestead and Rowntree Parks and Hungate and a mobile library.