Our gallery and bookshop will be closed Friday 29 and Saturday 30 March for the bank holiday weekend.

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The Reading Room

the reading room

The Reading Room is a new collaborative project opening up local spaces and providing a wealth of educational tools which will be a catalyst for creative thinkers and critical minds in partnership with Pluto Press, Left Book Club, Sustainable Studio (Cardiff) and Left Bank (Leeds), TOMA & The Old Waterworks (Southend-on-Sea) and Necessity, a living archive rooted in social and environmental justice.

The Reading Room is a new collaborative project where people can read, learn, listen, and share ideas.

Through linking up with other spaces across the country, we’ve created libraries stocked with thought provoking books, where reading groups and opportunities to meet authors are being established, providing resources and activities that hope to catalyse creativity, collaboration and conversation.

The organisations involved share a common goal – to support and empower people within their communities. This project has been initiated in partnership with independent publisher Pluto Press, and the Left Book Club, and over time, each local hub will develop to reflect and serve the community within which it sits, making each space responsive and unique.

As well as physical library spaces, The Reading Room will open up forums to debate local issues that affect everyday lives. Taking the lead from our communities, these topics may include inequality, the environment, precarious employment, LGBTQ+ issues, structural racism and much more.

How to borrow

Drop in to The Reading Room, located next to The NewBridge Project Gallery space on the first floor of The Shieldfield Centre. The gallery is open Wednesday – Friday (and some Saturdays) 12 pm – 5 pm.

Anyone can borrow a book for a period of 3 weeks, plus renewals can be arranged over email.

Email admin@thenewbridgeproject.com for more info about borrowing from The Reading Room or to arrange a different date and time to look through our collection of books.

Check out system

  • A maximum of two books to be checked out at once.
  • Books should be returned after three weeks.
  • Extensions are allowed only if the book is not reserved.
  • Only one person can reserve at a time. Once someone reserves a copy that is due back, we email the person who has the copy to ask them to return it in time. Once it’s returned, we keep it for a week. Three weeks start counting from the moment the book is available, not from when it’s been picked up.
  • Drop off system: books can be dropped off anytime within our opening hours (Wednesday – Friday, 12 pm – 5pm), or posted through our letterbox

Collaborators