Leave Your Mark: the visual libraries project. A collaborative visual pilot project that examines the creative use of sketchbooks in public libraries

This article will outline how a new research project is providing access to sketchbooks and how these can be used to support, promote and encourage diversity and democracy in the public library. It aims to explore how sketchbooks can empower people to re-discover their creative potential and examine ways to collaborate with library groups that cover a variety of backgrounds and minority groups. It will describe the establishment of The Visual Libraries Project and its vision for the future through expansion. It will conclude with some recommendations for other libraries interested in collaboration, on the implementation and the possibilities for visual archiving of the sketchbooks.