Visual libraries: leave your mark

Visual Libraries: a collaborative, visual project which encourages you to sign out a Visual Library Book and ‘Leave Your Mark’. A Visual Library Book is whatever you want it to be, a sketchbook, a journal, a diary, a notepad. You can ‘Leave Your Mark’ in whatever way you want, ranging from drawing, writing, sewing, adding photographs, markings, printing and sticking. How you make your marks is entirely up to you. All we ask is that you have fun with the different themes. The aims of the project are: to develop strong links with the library service and the community in Portsmouth, promoting a greater awareness of the importance of the library and its support services through a positive experience; to empower community and minority groups to engage with the University and local libraries in a new and innovative way; to promote a greater social awareness among students, allowing them to utilise their talent and skills for the benefit of the city and its community through engagement with organised workshops; to empower local residents and the student population to contribute to a collaborative creative project; to increase use of libraries by engaging new library members, including those who haven’t used a library in traditional ways; to encourage and develop a more pro-active relationship between the library service and service users; to support the development of cultural activity and self-expression; to celebrate the Visual Journal creativity in library buildings and products; to establish a database that will support and promote the importance of sketchbooks in libraries nationally and internationally, in order to foster cross-cultural developments and projects. The aim was to promote this project not as an exclusive resource, but with the intention of sharing, networking and inter-weaving with others. This project introduced 100 sketchbooks into the Portsmouth City Libraries, accompanied by the delivery of workshops to five community groups: the vision impaired, prison services, MIND, housebound and the women’s refuge. International collaborators include The British Council Library and Little Flower Convent for the Blind in Chennai India, Forsyth County Public Library, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, US. Exhibited at British Council, Chennai, India, January 2011.