People in Staffordshire are being urged to visit their local library and join the online celebrations as part of National Libraries Week.

The annual campaign, running from 5th to 10th October, recognises the amazing contribution that libraries make to people's lives and local communities. It also gives people a chance to discover the huge range of things available at their local library.

This year's theme is celebrating books and reading and will show how libraries continue to engage communities through reading, providing access to and developing diverse collections and enabling digital reading through eBooks, magazine and audiobooks.

As part of the celebrations, Staffordshire County Council's libraries service is hosting a week of their own activities linking into the Staffordshire History Festival, Black History Month, Get On Line Week and National Poetry Day all in October.

Victoria Wilson, Cabinet Member for Communities and Culture at Staffordshire County Council said: "National Libraries Week is one of the key events in the libraries calendar and something we look forward to every year.

"This week we will be celebrating the contribution that libraries make within their local communities as well as acknowledging their efforts to keep people reading, providing comfort and companionship. With a whole range of interesting subjects to read about and get involved in, it's a great week to explore what libraries have to offer including the library online offer.

"Libraries continue to play a vital role in local communities and over the last six months we've seen a huge growth in digital services like e-books and e-magazines. We've had to reinvest to keep up with demand. During lockdown we also saw an increase of people joining the library services and huge numbers of people following the online activities on our Facebook page which is a credit to the staff and volunteers."

Some online events taking place for national Libraries Week include the following. Further details are available on the libraries Facebook page:

• Sandonia - A Talk by Andrew Baker from Staffordshire Libraries Service (Mon 5th 12:30pm)

• Make a Viking helmet craft video– (Tues 6th 12:30pm)

• Library poem (Wed 7th 12:30pm)

• Rumplestiltskin reading (Thurs 8th 12:30pm)

• Chris Copp from Staffordshire archives and museums service – History of the Stafford Shoe Industry (Sunday 11th 12:30pm)

• Andrew Baker – Music of Shugborough (Sunday 11th 1:30pm)

National Libraries Week 2020 is being co-ordinated by CILIP and sponsored by Nielsen Book and OverDrive. People can find out more here.