CAT Stevenston (supported by the Green Libraries Scotland Grant Fund)
Category: Blog, CILIPSGoGreen, Professional Development
by Mhairi Cook, Literacy and Play Co-ordinator and project lead
We applied for funding from the Green Libraries Scotland Grant Fund in 2023 and were successful for our project CAT Stevenston. We chose Stevenston, a small town that along with Ardrossan and Saltcoats makes up the ‘Three Towns’ in North Ayrshire, as it was one of Scotland’s first nine Climate Action Towns. This initiative was a Scottish Government funded project delivered by Architecture and Design Scotland aimed at supporting towns to tackle the impact of the climate emergency through place-based action. We wanted to ensure that the library played a central part in this by developing a series of activities and events aimed at increasing awareness of environmental issues and encouraging all members of the community to take part in the climate adaptation conversation. The project enabled us to engage the community in Stevenston in a variety of activities to raise awareness of climate and environmental themed issues.
Library staff attended Climate Action Town meetings to promote the work we were doing and hosted a climate conversation session in the library with colleagues from sustainability, third party organisations, ADS, and members of the public to discuss how climate action in the town can move forward. As part of our involvement in the project we are now members of the Ayrshire Climate Hub Community Forum which meets to share information and best practice across Ayrshire.
Our Climate Classroom offered sessions to local primary schools with authors, storytelling, arts, crafts, and poetry. Children wrote poetry inspired by their favourite outside space in their local area, designed climate change themed posters and learned about various aspects of climate change and the environment including rewilding, recycling, renewable energy sources, plants and growing and animal habitats. As these sessions were so well received by the schools, we used additional funding to extend them to libraries in other areas and will include climate themed class visits as part of our core offer to schools. Going forward, we are working with the Stem Co-ordinator in Education to offer activities in libraries for families and schools.
Pupils from the nurture group at Auchenharvie Academy worked with an artist, learning about the issues around fast fashion and textile waste. They used old garments that would have been sent to landfill to create a patchwork weave using the ancient practice of loom weaving.
Glencairn Primary school pupils also worked with an artist, looking at their aspirations for their town in a climate stable world. They discussed the issue of climate change and how single use plastics can be bad for the environment, looked at trash island and artists who are turning rubbish into trash art. Using recycled materials they created an Octopuses Garden, including wish fish which contain their hopes for the future.
Both pieces of artwork are on display in the library. Again, these projects were very well received by schools, giving the pupils the opportunity to work with an artist over a period of weeks and learning new skills that they would not have had the opportunity to do otherwise.
We launched a seed library and ran information drop-in sessions for the community to come along and learn more about how to use it and tips on planting and growing. The library is currently in the process of setting up a gardening group where beginners can learn from more experienced members. We held sessions for families making seed bombs and planting sunflowers and cress, as well as growing our own tomatoes in the library. Our local allotments provided us with seed potatoes to distribute. Building links through the project with the allotments has led to us partnering with them on a new project, where we are looking to repurpose an area outside one of our libraries for planting, raised beds and storytelling. This will allow us to offer growing activities to groups with members from the allotments.
Staff attended walk leader training and are working with our colleagues in Community Development to run walking groups in the area. Active Travel staff offered a Nordic Walking taster session and are now running a group throughout the summer. Our Lifelong Learning team ran buggy walks with a local parents’ group and a guided nature walk in partnership with the Rangers service. Other outdoor activities included stay and play sessions, outdoor storytelling, and Forest Fun where parents and pre-school children explore the local area and get creative using natural resources. We also purchased litter pickers that the public can borrow to encourage them to look after their local environment.
Eco arts and crafts sessions gave adults, families, and children the opportunity to create art from recyclable materials. These included rag wreaths, eco baubles, eco-friendly handmade bookmarks, recycled paper crafts, mini-pot painting and upcycled book art. We are planning to offer further sessions in other libraries during Book Week Scotland.
Sewing machine workshops offered the opportunity to upcycle old textiles into something new. As a result of the popularity of these sessions we have purchased sets of sewing machines for other libraries to extend classes into all areas of North Ayrshire.
We have established a collection of books covering climate issues and the environment. This includes fiction and non-fiction for adults and young people. A Climate Corner in the library displays books, leaflets from Active Travel promoting cycle and walking routes in the local area and information about the Climate Action Town project. As well as the physical collection, we have a range of titles on our eBooks site. With other funding we have been able to purchase further copies of climate titles to create collections in some of our other branches. We ran Climate Cinema sessions where we held screenings of films with an environmental theme for both adults and families. During school holidays, we ran environmental themed days where families could join us for a nature walk then come back to the library to watch a film and take part in eco crafts. We hosted a Paperboats Yard where people created an origami boat and included a climate message which were all delivered to the Scottish Parliament by Paperboats, a collective of writers focussed on raising awareness of climate change.
Our #NAonemorething campaign encouraged people to commit to doing one small thing to help the environment. This helped to generate discussion on climate change issues with our customers and for staff to then promote our climate corner and resources on offer. We have also been encouraging people to bring their old batteries to the library for recycling.
The Green Libraries Scotland Grant Funding allowed us to carry out a targeted programme of events and activities within Stevenston Library and the surrounding area, demonstrating that libraries are a key partner in raising awareness of and taking action around climate change within their local communities. We were able to offer activities and engage with participants including schools, families, young people and adults. A range of providers such as authors and artists worked with groups to offer their expertise and skills in addition to the activities that library staff delivered, which allowed us to co-ordinate a high-quality programme of events to complement the Climate Action Town project.
As a result of the success of CAT Stevenston, we will continue to implement climate engagement in our libraries in North Ayrshire. From battery recycling to class visits, seed libraries and dedicated climate collections we are keen that our service continues to play a central role in engaging communities and raising awareness of the challenges ahead and how small changes can have a big effect when we all work together.
Learn more about the Green Libraries Scotland Grant Fund.