LIBRARY users bid a fond farewell to the familiar Bromsgrove Library building on Saturday. The library originally moved into the Stratford Road building on November 15, 1968, from its former home as part of the old Institute building on New Road. The Rousler figure, which is housed in the library, originally came from that building.

A people counter was installed in the library in the year 2000 to record month by month visitor numbers, and between September 2000 when it was installed, and October 2015, 2,620,462 people have passed through the library’s doors.

The library was refurbished in the autumn and winter of 2005 and 2006, and it was the first library in Worcestershire to offer the new self-service machines to people to be able to issue, renew or return their own items from March 2006.

The library will be re-opening in its new home at the former Parkside Middle School on Monday, November 30 at 9am.

The building will serve as a one-stop shop for council services, including the register office, Job Centre Plus base, council offices, a new chamber for the district council, a customer service centre, a community hall, and the new library.

The new library building will also have opportunities for volunteering with a wider variety of roles on offer including: meeting and greeting library customers; helping people get online; shelving and helping to keep the library tidy, unpacking items of stock and getting involved in library clubs and other library activities, including helping at a range of one-off events. Anyone interested can find out more by calling into the library or visiting worcestershire.gov.uk/info/20002/community_and_volunteering.

Library customer advisor Pat Tansell, and Dave Corbett have been commissioned to write a booklet on the history of the town's library for the Bromsgrove Society History Group, which is soon to be published.