PEOPLE IN MORAY are never too young to start reading books – and to demonstrate the point council libraries and registrar services are teaming up to issue a library card to ever child when their birth is registered.
That will mean all children born in Moray will automatically become library members – and entitle them to borrow books, CD’s and DVD’s virtually from the moment they enter the world – albeit with a little help from mum and dad!
Principal Librarian, Sheila Campbell, hopes the initiative will encourage children to read from an early age: “As far as I am aware we are the first local authority to automatically issue library membership to ones so young and it is a good example of collaborative working within the council.
“I am sure the initiative will be popular with parents who I hope will see it as part of giving their new baby the best possible start in life.”
Chair of the children and young people’s services committee, Councillor Anne Skene, this week presented the first membership to 19-day-old Lossiemouth resident Lochlan Sam Mitchell when his mum and dad Kathryn and Paul registered his birth in Elgin.
Councillor Skene said: “We are delighted to have received funding from the Scottish Government’s public library improvement fund to automatically enrol every child as a library member from the registration of their birth.
“The libraries service will be working in partnership with the registrars who will hand out the specially designed library card and information flyer to parents.
This will allow us to promote the benefits of reading and the library service to those who have traditionally been hardest to reach.”