Mansfield Library has achieved recognition for its efforts to be inclusive and welcoming to people of all ages.

Inspire, which runs culture, learning, and libraries on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, audited its four largest libraries against the Age-Friendly Standards to measure the steps they have taken to make a visit to the library more welcoming and accessible to older people.

Mansfield was among those awarded Age-Friendly Standards status in recognition of the physical environment, cultural programme, staff awareness and behaviour, practises, and communications to provide a positive experience for all visitors regardless of age.

The Age-Friendly Standards are a national self-assessed accreditation for cultural organisations and a recognised and trusted symbol for older audiences and family groups, including older people. They are designed to complement the existing Family Arts Standards, which codify good practice in welcoming families, and which Inspire has held for the same flagship libraries.

The Age-Friendly Standards provide specific guidance on welcoming older generations.

Some of the highlights of the audit undertaken at Inspire are;

Inspire aims to build relationships with older people through its provision of events, in particular its adult learning courses, regular clubs for all ages, dementia friendly film programme and Places of Welcome, a welcoming friendship group held in libraries.
Community Makers, Inspire’s volunteer programme, welcomes people of all ages and encourages older people to join to keep them active in their communities.
Inspire builds partnership with other organisations, places and services to reach older people.
Inspire considers accessibility across all touchpoints from the physical environment to customer interactions and their website. This includes securing funding for accessible walk-through videos of the four venues.

Inspire chief executive Peter Gaw said: “We have worked hard to build our offer to welcome people of all ages and are really proud that
we achieved the Age-Friendly Standards to complement our Family Arts recognition. We recognise there is always more work to do and are looking to make ongoing improvements, for example to improve access information in our venues, working with older artists to deliver activities and providing more age focused initiatives.”