Library community services

Services we offer include:

  • library services for the disabled and their carers
  • multi-cultural services
  • skills for life
  • reading ahead
  • home library service

Library services for disabled people and carers

Libraries provide a wide range of services for disabled customers including:

  • large print books
  • spoken word CDs
  • audio-described DVDs
  • access to the internet, e-mail and computers
  • British Sign Language and lip-reading resources
  • disabled parking - Forum, Kent Elms and Shoeburyness
  • disabled toilets - Forum, Kent Elms and Shoeburyness
  • induction loops - Forum, Leigh and Southchurch

We also provide a wide range of services for carers and the people they look after and many of them are free.

Multicultural services

We also offer a number of adult and children’s books in many different languages.

There are also many newspapers and magazines of interest to different ethnic groups available.

As well as a wide range of:

  • world cinema DVD titles
  • world music CD titles

Available from the library catalogue.

English language courses are also available for loan for speakers of other languages and we also hold information on English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses at Southend Adult Community College.

Skills for Life

We also offer a Skills for Life service which includes:

  • help for tutors and students
  • the Get On collection
  • the Quick Reads collection
  • language and citizenship testing
  • life in the UK test
  • ESOL with citizenship courses

Reading Ahead with Southend Libraries

If you're thinking about improving your reading or would like to read more, then Reading Ahead is for you. This free scheme invites you to pick six reads and record them in a free reading diary to get a certificate.

You are able to register at any Southend Library, or at The Forum. It is free to take part.

You can really read anything you like:

  • books
  • newspapers
  • poems
  • plays
  • websites
  • e-books on a Kindle
  • spoken word or anything else you want

Anyone completing the Challenge in Southend receives their certificate at a celebration event held in the city.

Contact details

Community Development Officers e-mail - librarydevelopment@southend.gov.uk

Tel No. 01702 534123

Home library service

We offer a free service delivering library resources to customers in their homes when they may no longer be able to visit the library.

The Home Library Service can only reach a limited number of people at any one time. So we will seek to provide the service for those people who need it most.

This means that you may be asked to wait until there is a place available at your nearest library.

Contact details

Community Development Officers e-mail - librarydevelopment@southend.gov.uk

Tel No. 01702 534123

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