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Councillor John Cottee, Chairman of the Communities Committee

The library service in Nottinghamshire can trace its roots back to the mid-1870s and has a long history of innovation and responding to the needs of communities.

In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the important role libraries play across the county and I am delighted with how we have adapted to continue to deliver services remotely to support library users.

We have strived to keep services at the heart of the community by offering alternative solutions to enable people to have access during what has been challenging and unprecedented times.

This is in addition to our investment in recent years in new libraries, new mobile libraries, and IT infrastructure to ensure our long-running commitment to maintain the network and offer the best service for our communities across the whole of Nottinghamshire.

In the past 12 years we have seen new library buildings opened in Worksop, West Bridgford, Collingham, Misterton and Cotgrave, with much of the remaining libraries across the county undergoing refurbishment.

The creation of Inspire – which manages the library service on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council – to deliver our libraries, culture and learning services has been a great success in offering a range of events, exhibitions, activities, and courses.

In the coming year, we are continuing to invest by replacing the mobile library fleet – which will enable this valued part of the service to continue to serve the more remote parts of the county – as well as upgrading all public computing facilities.

There is, of course, more we can do and through the Community Makers volunteering programme – which was launched in September and provides opportunities for people who want to make a difference – we are looking to increase access to our libraries, increase the number of library activities and support the growing cultural and learning programme.

We are continually striving for Nottinghamshire to have the best library service in the country and ourselves and Inspire are committed to keeping libraries open and keeping our services operating at the very highest level.

I am passionate about our libraries and I firmly believe we are well on the way to achieving my vision of being the very best.