It was a pleasure to welcome SWRLS members along to this year’s Members’ Day in the Glass Box at Taunton Library on Tuesday 16th June. The day’s slides are available, including: SWRLS highlights, e.g. training Panel speaker talks: Wellbeing collections at Penryn & Falmouth University Libraries Leisure & wellbeing collections at University of Exeter Library Bristol Libraries health & wellbeing activities & partners Somerset Libraries health & wellbeing offer Somerset NHS Fou

SWRLS is pleased to announce that Carol Giles will be taking over as SWRLS Coordinator from July. Carol has extensive experience as a Library Manager in both academic and health library services, including as Manager of the National Marine Biological Library in Plymouth. She has an Honours degree in History and European Studies and a Postgraduate qualification in Library and Information Studies at the University of Strathclyde. Other interests also include horse riding and no

Life Writing, Wellbeing, and Nature We're excited to be embarking on a tour of author talks & workshops across 20 libraries from January to June 2026! We are also thankful for our partnership with the fabulous Literature Works so that we can build on the success of three previous tours, and for the Arts Council England funding that is making it possible. This time, the tour focuses on life writing, wellbeing, and nature . It combines author Q&A talks with hands-on creative

This year’s AGM welcomed SWRLS members to Exeter College on Thursday 13 November, where we also introduced the ACE-funded author tour for 2026: Words Alive in Libraries: Life Writing, Wellbeing and Nature. It was also excellent to hear from four librarians from among our specialist library members, from the Marine Biological Association and Science Museum Library at Wroughton to NHS health libraries. Thank you to Carol Giles, Amy Williams, Stella Scott and Bethany Courtney