Wembley Library The First Quarter

I mentioned before that Wembley Library seems to be a big success compared to the former Town Hall Library, but it is worth looking at the figures for the first quarter of operation for this.

The figures for visitor numbers are:

	2013	2012	% Change
July	49,769	20,689	140.6%
August	54,222	21,028	157.9%
September	42,376	17,539	141.6%
Total	146,367	59,256	147.0%

The figures for book borrowing are:

	2013	2012	% Change
July	16,549	9,489	74.4%
August	20,205	10,652	89.7%
September	15,262	8,466	80.3%
Total	52,016	28,607	81.8%

These are both impressive jumps in numbers, but I think it is also worth thinking about the qualitative differences.

Some people, like Phil Bradley, see the future of libraries as helping people to cross the digital divide and become more familiar with the latest information technologies.  You can get a sense of this in Wembley with the staff regularly helping people with the PCs and the fixed ipads available.  Less obvious is the ipad lending service or loans of energy meters, and training in things such as how to construct a web site. 

Incidentally, Wembley Library also features an impressive list of writer events, including Martina Cole on Wednesday.  You can find more Brent libraries events here.