Manchester Libraries has been named the overall winner of the Library of the Year Award, announced at The British Book Awards 2025 at Grosvenor House London on Monday, 12th May.
Sponsored by publisher DK and run in partnership with The Reading Agency, the award recognized Manchester Libraries for its successful city-wide Blue Peter Book Club Live programme. As the winner for North England, it triumphed over nine other regional and national finalists, selected from 36 entries across the UK and Ireland.
The Blue Peter Book Club Live programme engaged with people who had never or very rarely visited a library, resulting in an 88% visitor increase compared to a typical Saturday, with 60% of these attendees living in an area of high deprivation. Connecting with readers via local schools, the incentive saw children’s library membership increase by 33% during the campaign compared to the same period in 2023, and 12,308 people become new library members during the period. A programme which spread across the city, the team created a badge trail to connect 13 cultural venues, distributed 20,000 trail maps, and enlisted local partners to act as champions.
Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller and chair of judges, said: ‘In the Library award’s return year, Manchester Libraries is a truly worthy winner, showing how to use resources, access and breadth to change lives through reading. That it did this at scale, should not be off-putting to other libraries, but rather indicates what can happen when a range of partners pull together. We hope this winner provides a template for others to follow, whatever the size.’
Karen Napier MBE, CEO, The Reading Agency said: ‘Congratulations to Manchester Libraries for winning with their city-wide Blue Peter project. The project drove a huge number of children from areas of high deprivation to the library and many for the first time, opening the doors to so much opportunity and the 33% increase in children’s library membership is a remarkable achievement. I do also want to acknowledge every library service that submitted to the award this year, which demonstrated the innovation at the heart of the sector. Libraries are lighthouses for the future, and spaces where knowledge is curated, truth is protected, and communities are strengthened. They are powerful community hubs, places where everyone is equally rich in access to ideas, creativity, and where the transformative power of reading connects us to worlds beyond our own.’
