National Year of Reading is encouraging you to share your stories
Exhibitions, guest speakers and an ancestry course are among the highlights of a month-long campaign to encourage residents to explore their community’s past.
Our library service marks the annual Local and Community History Month by organising a series of events.
For full details of events taking place during Local and Community History Month, including dates and activities, contact your local library to find out what’s happening near you.
This year is also the National Year of Reading, with libraries encouraging customers to share a story about history in their area at activities taking place.
Our executive member for libraries, Cllr Simon Myers, said: “Once again we are joining the national initiative to showcase the county’s history, whether that be a local beauty spot, a quirky tradition or an unknown author.
“We are using it as an opportunity to promote the National Year of Reading, inviting children, families, schools and communities to connect through books and storytelling.
“I would encourage everybody to find out what activities are happening at their nearest library and get involved in exploring their heritage.”
Throughout the month, an exhibition at Scarborough Library will showcase a collection of images from summer shows at theatres across the town. This will include the Sex Pistols and the 50th anniversary of their gig at the Penthouse, which marked the first time they had toured outside of London.
Northallerton Library is hosting an exhibition with a theme of North Yorkshire in Print, using material from its book collection and reference library.
At Ripon Library, photographs from Ripon City Photographic Society will be on show, accompanied by talks about Wilfred Owen and the Aldborough Roman site.
For those interested in exploring their ancestry, a five-week course will launch on Thursday 21 May at Catterick Community Library.
As part of Whitby’s Fish and Ships Festival on Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 May, the town’s library is celebrating the work of Joseph Banks, Captain Cook’s renowned botanist, during his voyages of discovery to the South Seas. The library is working with primary schools to create puppets, with a giant crab puppet to be paraded through the crowd during the event.
A pop-up archive comprising maps and documents relating to Pickering from the 1830s onwards will be on display in the town’s library on Friday 8 May between 10am and 2pm. North Yorkshire’s archives team will be on hand to answer questions and assist with research.
Curators from Craven Museum will tour Grassington, Skipton, Settle and South Craven libraries with a pop-up museum showcasing items from their collection relating to the theme Everyday Histories.
Among the talks on offer is Kathy Allday from Knaresborough Heritage Centre, who will speak about Knaresborough Forest at the library on Tuesday 12 May from 2pm to 3pm.
At Harrogate Library, there will be talks about Barnes Wallis and the Bouncing Bomb and Nidderdale: The Glistening Dale, along with family history help sessions and exhibitions.
Pre-school children can get involved with a story time with a guest from Malton Museum about the Romans. It will be held on Tuesday 12 May between 10.30am and 11.30am at the library.
Sherburn Community Library will be holding an over-90s meet up and Skipton Library’s regular memory café will allow residents to reminisce and share stories.
In Selby, an archive evening of the town’s history will be held on Monday 11 May from 5.30pm to 7.30pm.
Most libraries hold a local history book section and some have microfilm on newspapers, census data, maps and photographs. Some libraries also hold collections related to specific topics or individuals.
Also in libraries, Findmypast and Ancestry allow people to trace the history of high streets by looking through census records, trade directories and electoral registers.
The British Newspaper Archive holds newspapers from the 1700s and NewsBank offers papers from the 1990s.
Online magazines can be downloaded via PressReader and the BFI collection holds films and videos from your local area.