Queue Up and Dance

We’re delighted to announce we have received Historic England’s Everyday Heritage Grant for our project celebrating Quadrant Park, the country’s first all night rave and nightclub, which existed for one brief year in Bootle.

Netherton Air Quality Research

Would you like to join us to explore air quality through data research and creative sessions?

In a City of Flowers

At the Library is delighted to announce a forthcoming exhibition from artist Lou Chapelle: In a City of Flowers!

Zero Waste Winter

As the lead up to the festive holiday season approaches, we want to invite you all to join us for our Zero Waste Winter.

Our Dreams of Jasmine

‘Our Dreams of Jasmine’ is a multi-lingual publication, sound piece, and project containing a collection of love poems selected by women with experience of migration and written by Jessica El Mal. 

Samba Gown Veil with Sandra Suubi

We’re inviting women living around Bootle and Waterloo to create a veil and artwork from recycled materials with artist Sandra Suubi, as part of her work for Liverpool Biennial’s 12th edition “uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things”.

What Stories Make Worlds

‘What Stories Make Worlds’ was a free series of sessions, open to all ages and abilities, which looked at the past, present and future of Netherton. Through conversations, photography, walks and information gathering, participants built a new archive of the area by studying its natural and human surroundings. 

Listening in…

Listening in…at the Library is a project in which artists, library staff and visitors are invited to listen in to the space in and around Sefton Libraries.

two pink notebooks created by Lucille with the words 'Private Journal' pasted on top

Zine Pop-Up

Zines are a do-it-yourself alternative to traditional art and publishing which emerged from fan communities creatively expressing themselves without the limits of corporations. Shared either digitally or physically, they tend to be handmade magazines filled with every and any kind of art, from sketching, to colleging and writing.

the colour of pomegranates

We are working with Venus and the Red Cross to offer women learning English a space to practice their English speaking and listening skills with native speakers, through creative activity and conversation.

tea by post: netherton blend

You are invited to Netherton Library for a restful season of tea-making. This summer we will be planting and growing herbs for tea in the raised beds at the library, and creating a special library tea blend to be harvested in the autumn.

Canal walks and readings

All biological life – animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and other single-celled organisms – depends on the existence of water. We are intimately linked to water, with our own bodies being 70% water.

MODERN NATURE

A collaboration between At the Library, Rimrose Valley Friends, Artist Niki Colclough and shaped by young people of Sefton. Everyone is welcome and everything is FREE.

Chamomile Circle

Over the next year Frances Disley will be working with At the Library exploring solidarity and mutual support structures shared between parents and carers of young families through growing together, and exploring herbs and plants.

forest bathing for rest and resilience

Rimrose Valley is a rare and much-loved natural resource in the middle of an otherwise built up, post-industrial area. Niki Colclough is a Manchester based artist and cultural educator, whose practice concerns ecological empathy, and ways of connecting to nature. Over four Fridays in March, you are invited to join us on a series of walks and encounters in the Valley, exploring how this process can help us build resilient, heathy communities.

Mindful movement

Yoga instructor Katy Gilmour invites you to be gently guided through a nourishing embodied practice, exploring, breath, movement and meditation.

The Kitchen table collective: dinner service

The Kitchen Table Collective is back! Leading on from the first stage of our Kitchen Table Collective project, during which 30 participants made hundreds of ceramic objects that we might find in the kitchen, we’re taking inspiration from Aliyah Hussain’s “Dinner Service” artwork for our latest ceramics-making project.

Bootle Library Garden

Bootle Library Garden is a space for growing, reading, playing, thinking, meeting and art and is open during library opening hours.

Chopping Club

Chopping Club is a monthly gathering, inviting people from Sefton to meet in the library to prepare collective meals together, visit local sites of food production, and share knowledge and memories around food. We cook and eat together whilst  building connections between each other and with the networks of growers, producers and wider food systems which bring food to our tables. Everyone chops, so everyone has cooked lunch for everyone else.

Stitch Club

Join us for a social stitching group making & mending together. Bring your old clothes to mend, new projects, ideas and stories to the Large Lecture Hall on the 2nd Floor of Crosby Library, and learn to mend with a friendly group.

Remedies for Resistance

Remedies for Resistance shares remedies from residents of Bootle and beyond, gathered through conversations and community workshops led by Raju Rage, which took place between 2020-21: a difficult time of isolation and social distancing where accessing wellbeing was crucial. Acknowledging this, we considered the ways in which we take care of ourselves and each other. 

Soft Sanctuary Season

Soft Sanctuary is a project which artist Bella Milroy first developed for At the Library back in 2019 as a series of events at Bootle Library. The project centres disabled experiences through a universal concept of finding care and wellbeing, and celebrates the sanctuary nature of the library as a place to relax, feel safe and looked after. It has since developed into a programme of live events, written essays, recipes, film and podcasts. Exclusively featuring disabled artists, Soft Sanctuary explores the ceremonies of everyday life, and the disabled practices which offer us joy, ease and rest. 

Digital Workshop sheets

With local lockdowns and restrictions making it hard for us to be together, we know it can feel a little bit isolating lately, especially if you aren’t used to using technology. The At the Library Team has created a weekly series of step-by-step digital workshop sheets to help you understand how to use digital devices and stay connected with people. 

The Kitchen Table Collective

The Kitchen Table Collective is a collaborative ceramics project led by artist Aliyah Hussain. 

Freshly Cut Grass

Escape from it all for a little while and come on a journey through nature —without leaving the house. Artist Frances Disley has designed a series of online resources to help you escape the stresses and strains of everyday life by going on your own guided imaginary journey. The resources are designed to be used whenever and wherever best suits you.

Bootle Mappers – A Green Treasure Hunt

‘Maps are only an excuse for the journey they set us on.’

At the Library Voices

An ongoing programme of podcasts for At the Library. Working with people from the area we want to tell the story of the Humans of Bootle. Podcasts have been recorded and developed through podcasting workshops, talks and listening sessions at the library.

Pool Our Resources

Pool our Resources looked at how we are reintroducing elements of craft, thrift and upcycling back into our everyday lives. It was a celebration of the strength and depth of collective knowledge, a reminder of the importance of our social spaces, and the positive effect of skill-sharing on health and wellbeing.

Blue Mondays

The third Monday in January is commonly thought of as the most depressing day of the year, but we do our best not to succumb to winter gloom by inviting artists to host a day of shared creativity and food to warm hearts and fill stomachs.

What skills do you have, what skills do you need?

People’s Bureau ran a monthly skills exchange open to anyone who wanted to offer their talents, ideas and skills to further our collective learning. The skills were defined by what the local community wanted and needed. 

RRR

Frances Disley led a series of workshops exploring ways to unwind and relax using guided visualisations. Inspired by mindfulness practices, participants designed their own relaxing meditations using a combination of the familiar and imagined. 

Plant Party

Plant Party was a programme of workshops inviting people to exchange ideas and horticultural experience and look after the plants in the library. Everyone was encouraged to take cuttings, grow their own plants and bring in seeds, looking after our own mental health as much as looking after the plants.  The plants in the library are still cared for by Plant Party volunteers.

Soft Sanctuary

We invited artist Bella Milroy to design a programme of workshops throughout Autumn 2019. The project celebrated the sanctuary nature of the library as a place to relax, feel safe and looked after: cosy duvet-day vibes with a morning workshop, free meal and accompanying mental-health colouring book.

One Pot Project

One Pot Project was a series of community meals, organised by Fairland Collective. Prepared using a single induction hob and only one pot, the making of the meal was a collaborative task.

Workshops

Throughout the year we offer a range of artist-led workshops that might include creative practices from sketching through to weaving, printmaking, photography, hydroponics or ceramics.  We take a “learning together” approach so all sessions are suitable for every level of skill, talent or experience. We even take requests – so if there is something that you have always wanted to try we’ll do our best to find an artist who can lead a taster session. 

Bootle Press

Artist Sumuyya Khader led a series of Risograph workshops, exploring the possibilities of this fast, beautiful and simple method of printmaking, and working towards producing collaborative print works, using some of the materials gathered by At the Library thus far.

Press Room

Throughout March 2019, participants of Press Room, a project by Ciara Phillips, made a day-by-day record of press coverage leading up to 29th March 2019, the date set for Britain to exit Europe.