Curious Creatures library bags a hit at North Burnett Regional Council Libraries

Completed designs, Monto workshop

North Burnett Regional Council (NBRC) was fortunate to be awarded a Realising Our Potential Micro Grant from State Library of Queensland (State Library). The grant enabled the NBRC Libraries to engage children and families in a series of fun and interactive school holiday craft workshops during January 2019.

Workshop in action,  Eidsvold library

Council partnered with local artist, Rachel Koster, to deliver the project and workshops which were held in all six NBRC Libraries: Biggenden, Eidsvold, Gayndah, Monto, Mundubbera and Mt Perry. The workshops involved children and families designing their own unique library bag using fabric paint pens, wool, and beads.

The bag designs incorporated the Curious Creatures Summer Reading Club theme, with participants using a stencil to draw an outline of a creature on their bag, including owls, turtles, lamas and of course unicorns! Fabric paint pens were then used to colour in their creature, allowing participants to tap into their creative side to produce some remarkably colourful designs. There were also some amazingly talented up-coming artists who chose to design their own curious creature on their library bag.

Children decorating their library bags at Biggenden library

The workshops, attended by 111 children plus parents and caregivers, were thoroughly enjoyed by all, even the more mature attendees. The grant enabled Council to offer a program which resulted in deeply local outcomes, and provided an opportunity to extend our reach with children and families by promoting the value of libraries in our community along with information on library services and resources. We can’t wait to see children using their bags around town and when they borrow items from the library.

This project received financial assistance from the Queensland Government through State Library. For more information regarding this project, please contact North Burnett Regional Council’s Libraries Unit Leader on 1300 696 292 (1300 MY NBRC) or email admin@northburnett.qld.gov.au

About the author

Jenny Hall recently commenced as the Libraries Unit Leader for the North Burnett Regional Council and works across Council’s six library branches: Biggenden, Eidsvold, Gayndah, Monto, Mundubbera and Mt Perry. Jenny is new to RLQ/public libraries but has 15 years administration experience in the higher education sector and is currently studying a Bachelor of Education (Primary) along with a Certificate IV in Library and Information Services. Jenny is passionate about library programming and process improvement.