Darlington Library wins EDGE Award

The historic Grade II listed Darlington Library reopened in September 2023 after a total of £3.7m was invested in an extensive redevelopment to restore its historical features, while updating and modernising its facilities.

The renovation was helped by funding from Arts Council England, which awarded £225,000 for the refurbishment of three key areas – the Reminiscence Room, the Hoskins Room and The Hive – and funded improvements to the library’s digital offer. A further £30,000 was also secured through the LibraryOn grants programme to support improvements to digital discoverability, including updates to the library website.

The project was recently recognised by the EDGE Awards, winning the Digital Category.

The judges commented: “The Hive’s digital transformation has been extraordinarily successful. Sometimes the word ‘digital’ can be overused and be so general it loses all meaning, but what Darlington have done is made the digital tangible – they’ve made digital resources and activities of so many kinds available to groups who really need and appreciate them… this digital transformation has had a halo effect on all their services. Borrowing is up, digital borrowing is up, educational interactions are up, website use is up and the number of people visiting the library is way up.”

Darlington Libraries had been using iCAM Workstation Control and Printer Control at both their sites for 15 years and decided, as part of the refurbishment project, to introduce Wireless Cloud Print.

This allows library users to print documents from their own devices and further improves the digital offering in the library, alongside the rest of the digital improvements, further expanding the overall library offer.

In addition, the installation of iCAM iKiosk on the Bibliotheca kiosk means library members can log in to the self-service kiosk to pay for their printing. This extension of the self-service offering means less queueing at a desk for library members and frees up staff to deal with more complex enquiries.

Neil Johnson, Director, Insight Media: “We were thrilled to be a part of this exciting project, in such a stunning building. The finished result is just beautiful and we are honoured to have been a part of the team bringing together this improved library offer for the people of Darlington.”