Louth County Library Service: Your County - Your Library
Libraries in Louth, such as in Dundalk, Drogheda, Ardee, Dunleer and Carlingford are now the trusted go-to place in the community for guidance and support in terms of reading and literacy, lifelong learning, business and employment, healthy living and wellbeing. Ongoing programmes and initiatives providing this guidance and support include:
The Right to Read Initiative: Louth Library service supports and enhances literacy work in local communities with hundreds of literacy and reader development events throughout the year that help build reader confidence.
The ‘Work Matters at the library’ service supports business, enterprise and employment in the local community, by supporting individuals to secure employment, change career, start-up or grow their business. The initiative’s resources include dedicated hot desk spaces in Dundalk, Drogheda and Ardee libraries, free WiFi, Laptop / PC use, a variety of related books and information, a jobs board and a Work Matters Programme of events, talks and workshops. Continued investment in resources will allow for high spec. meeting room equipment and enhanced meeting space in early 2019.
The government led Healthy Ireland at Your Library initiative provides and promotes free access to reliable and authoritative health information in all library branches. A new core book collection relating to all aspects of health and well being is available in each branch library and a programme of health related events with trusted facilitators is scheduled to run in the libraries until March 2019.
In addition to the five branches in Dundalk, Drogheda, Ardee, Carlingford and Dunleer, the Mobile Library service supports rural and urban access to library services with over 800 community visits annually. The school library service visits all primary schools in the county a number of times a year and teachers are also welcome to visit the H.Q. store in Dundalk to avail of extra resources, class novels and advice.
In response to the expanding role of libraries and a world increasingly influenced by technology and digital learning, Louth County Council Libraries service has been awarded major capital investment to roll out vastly improved digital resources and learning spaces. This, along with the Council’s direct investment will mean you can expect to find a full range of devices, such as high spec PCs, laptops, iMacs, iPads, tablets, 3D printers, Virtual Reality headsets, gaming devices and interactive digital displays for your use in the library. Louth libraries will roll out an educational and innovative STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths) based learning programme in early 2019 aimed at children, young adults and the general public to make use of this new hardware and software.
Membership to Louth Libraries is free and gives free access to more than 15 million books. It is a local service with a national reach by providing access to the collections from the 330 public libraries in Ireland, via the national library catalogue. Members can access printing/photocopying services and read and borrow items
such as books, e-Books, audiobooks, digitial magazines for every hobby, DVDs, games and more. You can borrow up to 12 items and reserve items online or in the library. Items reserved from other locations are delivered quickly to your local branch for collection. Users can also avail of free internet and free Wi-Fi.
As a Library member in Louth you have access to over 3,700 magazines and 3,500 local, national and international newspapers through free online library resources. You can read or download to any device from across the globe free of charge. A new Library app currently available on Android can bring you directly to the suite of library e-services. It is available from at www.louthcoco.ie/libraries or the Google Play Store. The Library App will be available from the AppStore in 2019.
Louth County Libraries and Dundalk Institute of Technology Library also have a unique agreement to provide reciprocal borrowing and access to their libraries for members for free. This means that members of Louth County Libraries borrow items and avail of services in DKIT Library and vice versa.
Louth County Libraries host a wide range of events throughout the year, everything from parent & toddler groups, baby book clubs, language learning courses, computer classes, arts & crafts to name but a few. All events are advertised on www.louthcoco.ie and via social media on Twitter (@louthcoco), Louth County Libraries on Facebook, Instagram (@louthcountylibraries) and all easily accessed through the library App. For telephone enquiries please call Louth Library HQ on 042-9353190.