Darlington'S libraries have enjoyed a very busy year year which has seen the introduction of new services and features attracting more members and visitors.

During 2003, the libraries in Crown Street, Cockerton and the mobile libraries have issued almost 750,000 books to 6,000 youngsters and 15,500 adults, which is about a quarter of the local population.

Since the opening of the Crown Street and Cockerton electronic libraries in February, almost 12,000 people have used the service - 10,000 of these were non-library members - and between them they clocked up 13,000 hours of e-library usage and booked 19,500 sessions.

The service offered a variety of courses throughout the year, including several computing courses, including "IT for the Terrified".

The Darlington library teams have been awarded the Darlington Access for All Award, the Working towards Investors in Children, with a group from Hurworth School and the Community Legal Services award.

The libraries recently launched a new junior library membership card and 474 of the new tickets have been issued since the launch, 185 to new library members.

Users have also enjoyed a host of events at the libraries, including, a BBC Big Read promotion and voting online, a Black History Month, History of Railways exhibition, Liz Million art workshops, as well as a number of activities for children.

The libraries website attracted around 12,000 visitors during the year with the majority of people viewing the online library catalogue.