News

Visitors to parks in Leeds are being encouraged to listen to stories while they take a stroll this summer through the new ‘Walking Books’ project.

The hope is to introduce reading to new audiences with free eAudiobooks and promote wellbeing.

They were the boisterous barroom ballads that once rattled the rafters of Victorian music halls across Leeds.

Now librarians are calling on the city’s modern-day musicians and singers to help them bring an incredible collection of vintage sheet music to life for the first time in more than a century.

Some of the world’s oldest football fanzines, which kicked off a wave of people-powered publications on terraces across the globe, are going on display in a new exhibition in Leeds.

A copy of Foul, widely regarded as the original magazine created by football supporters, is among the scores of titles which feature in Voice of the Fans, which opens at Leeds Central Library on Friday (May 9) and has been co-produced with the British Library.

Events running from February 14 to March 8

Music lovers have today been given their first look at the city’s new 21^st century music centre at Leeds Central Library.

Set to be a hit with the city’s budding recording artists, musicians and podcasters, the project has seen the building’s historic music library transformed into a dynamic new space, complete with specially created walk-in recording studios, pianos and podcasting facilities.

A collection of zines charting decades of the cheers, tears and triumphs experienced by football fans is being gathered together for a new exhibition in Leeds.

Librarians at Leeds Central Library are calling on supporters across the region to raid their collections at home and submit some of their favourite zines, which could be displayed in Voice of the Fans when it opens at the library in May.

A stunning 540-year-old manuscript filled with beautifully illustrated tips on how to stay on the right track throughout the year is going on display in Leeds.

Penned in around 1480 and inscribed on delicate vellum, the Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis, or Book of Hours, contains forty-six vividly illuminated images depicting various duties to be carried out each month along with the signs of the zodiac.

Two hundred years of seasonal storytelling have been brought together in a captivating collection of Christmas classics on display at Leeds Central Library.

A miniature copy of the King James Bible, which made headlines around the world when it was rediscovered during lockdown, is among the books on display, giving visitors a rare chance to see a highly unusual example of the original Christmas story.

Photographs of three Leeds soldiers killed during the Second World War and laid to rest in a cemetery in The Netherlands have been placed before their graves thanks to librarians in their home city.

Pictures of Lance Corporal Herbert Alan Young, teenager Private John Keddie and Sapper Walter Marshall have been laid at the CWGC Venray War Cemetery as part of a moving commemoration event held by local residents.

Libraries in Leeds are displaying books celebrating nature and climate action this week in a bid to inspire a new chapter in the city’s sustainability story.

As part of Green Libraries Week, titles offering everything from top gardening tips, environmentally friendly recipes and information about the climate emergency will be among the Green Reads on show at libraries and community hubs across the city.

A number of Leeds’s libraries will see new opening hours following a public consultation. 

The consultation, which looked at how people use libraries across the city, aimed to find out how the services could help reduce the financial strain on the council.

As community hubs and libraries provide residents with valuable services, the consultation was undertaken to establish ways of saving money whilst impacting residents as little as possible. 

A centuries-old court report from the infamous trial of King Charles I will be revealed later this month during a fascinating event in Leeds.

The remarkable book was created more than 360 years ago, and recounts in exhaustive detail the unprecedented week-long trial in 1649, which saw the King convicted of tyranny and treason and sentenced to death in the aftermath of the English Civil War.