The sixth annual edition of Festival of Libraries took place 10-14th June 2026 across library venues in Greater Manchester.

A total 125 events, exhibitions, performances, or workshops, delivered by over 100 artists and creative practitioners, took place in and around Greater Manchester’s libraries and cultural venues.

Some highlights from the evaluation include:

• A record 94.6k festival attendees
• 98% of attendees feel the library is an essential community service
• 73% of attendees felt the festival demonstrated that their library had more to offer them than they previously thought
• 96% of attendees enjoyed their event

The festival was supported by Arts Council England, and core programming partners the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Salford University supported the festival programme by selecting speakers and workshop leaders. This year’s international guest City of Literature was Barcelona.

Under the broad thematic heading of Bound together, Connected through Stories, this year’s festival programme was truly multi-disciplinary and incorporated creative exhibitions, poetry, music, theatre and dance, film, speaker/author events, and participative workshops with wide-ranging cultural and environmental themes.

The festival brought new community partners into library spaces this year, working with 42nd Street, Muslim Social Justice Initiative and SNE Studios to curate ‘takeovers’ of libraries. An enhanced schools programme too, saw young people in Greater Manchester getting involved with their libraries in new ways.

In their role as lead partners of Manchester’s accreditation as a UNESCO City of Lifelong Learning, the work and skills team at the city council also contributed support and funding for creative skills-based events, hosted by their network of training providers.

We’re delighted to be sharing the full impact report, prepared by independent evaluator Eric Hildrew, and highlights film by North Star Digital below.