Whether you're a newcomer, born and bred in West Sussex, researching the history of your family locally or working on a local history project, our Towns and Villages guides can help you get started.

Arranged by location, these handy guides contain links to local organisations and information, online resources, photographs and maps. They're just one part of our great range of free family and local history resources, designed to support your research.

If you have queries about local history, or any other topic, why not Ask a Librarian? We'd love to hear from you!

Have you seen - or heard - Fully Booked, our series of brief online book reviews, coming straight from the homes of library staff from around the county?

Just head for our Love Reading page to see the latest staff reading recommendations and to find lots of other fantastic book-related content.

Perhaps you’ve read a great book recently that you’d love to tell others about? Join in with daily conversations over in our Virtual Reading Group on Facebook – everyone’s welcome!            

We are currently living in very different times where anxiety and stress can affect our wellbeing. To help keep you and your family feeling positive, we have put together a variety of wellbeing resources in a new page on the virtual library hub.

Here you can explore lots of helpful websites for adults and children, ideas for improving wellbeing, County Council support networks and a booklist of mental health titles recommended by The Reading Agency.

Have you been having problems downloading eLibrary titles to your smartphone or tablet? Don't worry - help is at hand! Just send an email to library.digital@westsussex.gov.uk with your telephone number and a brief description of the help you need. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

We also have a dedicated web page for digital support, full of useful information to help you through the minefield of social media and video calling.

Lots of you have already been in touch - we've had nearly a hundred emails in just two weeks. If you do send us an email please remember to include your telephone number so that we can contact you.

Here are just a few of your comments:

• Really grateful for the time and patience talking me through how to register with the eBook service.
• I would like to offer you a cup of tea!! But it isn't easy to do via the telephone. Thank you so much - really appreciate it.
• Thank you again for all your help. We do appreciate all you're doing to keep our libraries accessible to us during this current difficult situation.

So let us know if we can help!

Did you know that, prior to library buildings closing, regular events in some West Sussex libraries included dementia-friendly singing sessions called Melody for the Mind?

Did you think that, with those sessions on a temporary hiatus, we'd stop singing? Certainly not. Instead we have recorded and uploaded some songs online so that everyone can join in and sing at home! Singing is known to help the memory and increase wellbeing, so why not give it a go?

If you did, it's probably because you joined in online with our Farmyard Fun storytime and activity last week! If you missed it, the video is still available for you to catch up on and enjoy.

Speaking of storytime, did you know that libraries in West Sussex shared an amazing 4,570 stories with children in March, as part of the World Book Day Share a Million Stories campaign?

The number of stories shared by us all are still being counted for the 200 Million Minutes campaign and you can take part by joining our Online Storytime every week. If you prefer you can take a look at World Book Day’s ten top tips on sharing your own tales at home - just ten minutes a day will make a difference.

Your local library may be closed temporarily, but we’re all still here for you.

As well as these newsletters, we’re sharing useful resources and updates throughout the week on our social media pages: 

Twitter: @WSCCLibraries and Facebook: WestSussexLibraries

Have you got any questions or suggestions? You can contact us by email. We're waiting to hear from you.