Scotland's top libraries have been crowned as teams in East Lothian and Inverclyde gained recognition for their community work.

The Scottish Library & Information Council’s (SLIC) awards for ‘Library Service Excellence’ and ‘Project of the Year’ were given out in Glasgow on October 28, with the winning teams pipping three other entrants.

The awards recognise the commitment, creativity and value libraries across Scotland offer the people and communities they serve.

The awards were judged by a panel which included Ruth Plowden, Writer/Fundraiser/Chair Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust and Catherine Salmond, Editor of The Herald.

East Lothian were given the Library Service Excellence award while the team from Inverclyde won Project of the year for their work around COP26.

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Other nominees included Shetland Libraries (who were highly commended), High Life Highland Libraries, Aberdeen City Libraries (who were highly commended), East Lothian Library Services and Falkirk Libraries.

SLIC Chair, Professor Ian Ruthven, said the quality of entries for the 2022 competition had been exceptional.

He said: “We were all really impressed by the range of innovations and commitment to local communities shown by the nominations.

"What was characteristic of each of the entries was this strong relationship between libraries and their communities; identifying local needs, working with communities to use the skills of libraries and library staff to improve people’s lives, and putting libraries at the heart of their communities.

“So often when reading the entries, we thought ‘only a library can do this’.

“Last year we found it hard to select a winner, so this year we created two awards, one for ‘Project of the Year’ and one for ‘Library Service of the Year’.  This only made it harder…so for the first time, we have a winner in each category and a highly commended award.

"Huge congratulations to all involved.”