Since returning to work this week after an amazing three trip to UK I’ve been consumed with the inevitable catch-up which comes with time away from school.  However, this morning I feel like I’m starting to get my head above the water and have been inspired to share this image which I came across through CILIP on Twitter this morning.

Take a closer look.  See all the very cool little knitted books all connected by a knitted cord?  My mind immediately went into overdrive.  Being the visual learner that I am I could envisage all the cool ideas you could use in all sorts of libraries. 

Public libraries could hold “knitting bees” where patrons could come and knit a book for their knitted-book-library-collection which could, on completion, be strung up as a fantastic visual display, kind of like Christmas streamers across the ceilings or above bookshelves. 

School libraries could also try something like this – maybe as part of their Library Week activities and festivities.  Or what about knitting little book badges to give to Book Club members or as reading challenge prizes.  Schools could enlist the help of the wider school community and find parents or grandparents or aunts or siblings who are creative to knit these.  A great way to partner with families who sometimes feel disconnected from their schools and probably have never even set foot in your library.

Some of your curriculum areas might be keen to get in on the act.  We have a very pro-active art department here who are always designing cool artworks which often find their way to our library walls.  Or maybe your fabrics teacher might be keen to run with this idea.  In primary schools, maybe each class could design their own little knitted “book-worms” to be displayed in the school library.

I think the other thing I loved about this picture and the concept behind it is the idea of how books are all connected (in this example, by a knitted rope!) but the bigger idea that books and libraries and ideas and people can all be connected in some way.  What a great illustration of this.  Everything we do – not just with a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool – is knitting our libraries together, in every sense.

So people ….. I know these are not the only great ideas for knitting a library.  What are yours?  Please share them with me and others!

Thanks to Annie Mauger for her wonderful photo of knitted books in Saltburn.