The Libraries

• New Parks Library
• Highfields Library
• St. Barnabas Library

These are secure, museum-quality cases which are displayed three times each year in collaboration with local people and community groups to create exciting exhibitions and displays. Bringing the museum into the libraries helps to enhance the library space and allows the hundreds of library users to see objects from the museum collections.

The groups and individuals we work with come from a wide range of backgrounds and interests including allotment groups, community football teams, faith groups, craft groups, young adults and reminiscence groups. This is an opportunity for them to choose a theme and work with museum professionals to learn the skills of creating an exhibition.

Developing a library exhibition may include research, borrowing objects and collecting stories from local people, visiting a museum, choosing museum objects, creating labels or an exhibition book, displaying the exhibition case, inviting friends and family to the exhibition launch and helping to run a family event or talk to promote the exhibition.

If your group would like to help to create an exhibition in one of these libraries, contact our Community Engagement Team by email.

Exhibitions on Display:

Leicester & The Queen; A Jubilee Exhibition

Leicester Museums & Galleries in partnership with Ready, Steady, Create (the St Barnabas Friday craft group) have created an exhibition celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years on the throne.

With loans from the group and rare items from the Museums’ Collection on display it also includes photographs documenting the Queen’s visits to the city since the 1950s.

Location: St Barnabas Library, 2 French Road, North Evington LE5 4AH

Western Wild - Community Exhibition at New Parks Library

The exhibition was developed in partnership with Parks Services and their Leicester Environmental Volunteers and Tree Warden Volunteers. It celebrates the wildlife in Western Park and New Parks. The volunteers are passionate about the natural world, not only for the wildlife but also for our own health and happiness.

This exhibition contains objects from the taxidermy, decorative arts, social history and geology collections.

Location: New Parks Library, 321 Aikman Avenue, Leicester LE3 9PW

Naturally Highfields. At Highfields Library

This exhibition is a partnership with Leicester Environmental Volunteers and Parks Services celebrating the wildlife we have all around us. Looking after the natural world around us is important, not just for the wildlife but also for our own health and happiness.

This exhibition celebrates the wildlife of Highfields using the Leicester Museums collection of animals and birds so you can get up close to explore.

Location: Highfields Library, 98 Melbourne Rd, Leicester LE2 0DS

 

 

Past Exhibitions:

Our Holidays – Community Exhibition at New Parks Library

Leicester Museums & Galleries Outreach Team worked with the New Parks New Friends group to create an exhibition called ‘Our Holidays’ at New Parks Library.

The exhibition was inspired by ‘Wish You Were Here’ at Newarke Houses Museum, and recalls people’s personal memories of how holidays have changed over the past 90 years for the people of New Parks, from day trips to the seaside and being sent to stay with family in the summer holidays to family holidays, first trips abroad and world-wide adventures. The display celebrated local people’s experiences through oral histories and objects, both from the collection and on loan from the contributors.

Black Lives Matter Too! At Highfields Library

An exhibition curated by Opal22 Arts and Edutainment in partnership with Leicester Museums and Galleries to highlight the Black Lives Matter Movement and the issues affecting Black People within Leicester and the UK.

The exhibition reflects the protests across the city and explores the facts around being Black in the UK. Also included is an original sculpture by artist Merissa Hylton ‘BLM’. The piece explores the use of sign language as a method of communication, and highlights the limitations of UK sign language for people with physical disabilities such as the artist herself, who has Amniotic Band Syndrome which affects the fingers on her right hand.

WWI Exhibition and poppy commemoration at St. Barnabas Library

To commemorate the First World War, exhibitions were created in all three libraries. Rather than working with a local group for each of these, instead we put a radio call out for people whose relatives lived and worked in the area of each library to lend us objects and tell us the stories of their relatives who had served in WWI or lived through the conflict at home in Leicester. The response was overwhelming, with amazing objects and poignant stores flooding in. We were able to display objects such as a WWI commemorative pin cushion, regimental insignia embroidered by a soldier while recovering from his injuries, the photo of a local hero in a frame made from the propeller blades of his plane and sketchbooks from the trenches.

At St. Barnabas Library the craft group wanted to commemorate the heroes listed on the local war memorial, so a project was developed to make a poppy for each man lost in the conflict. These were made in a wide variety of materials and using a range of different techniques, labelled with the name of each man, and displayed by the group in a huge frame. This installation is still in place in the library today, expressing the pride of the local community in their local heroes.

Working on the poppy commemoration

Memories of Childhood at New Parks Library

As part of developing an exhibition with groups of older people, we hold reminiscence sessions where people can share their stories and memories. The ‘Memories of Childhood’ exhibition at New Parks Library was developed with members of the Braunstone History Group. The group shared stories about their childhoods and looked at how childhood has both changed and stayed the same over time. These stories inspired the object selection from the museums’ collection leading to many objects being displayed for the first time. The stories were put into an exhibition book and the exhibition reflected the universal themes of the group’s experiences.

New Parks Library Exhibition