The Touring Arts in Libraries Project (TAIL) is a fantastic 2 year project, funded by the Arts Council England and delivered by the National Rural Touring Forum (NRTF), a national organisation set up to support high quality creative experiences for rural audiences.

Libraries exist as neutral, accessible spaces, free and open to everyone, and without the usual social and cultural barriers of an art gallery or theatre. There is a strong argument to support not only the existence of a library in every community but a future of libraries as spaces where individuals and communities can come together to share creative and cultural experiences.

The focus of the TAIL Project was to boost the ambition of libraries to deliver a programme of touring arts by promoting the collaboration between the rural touring network of artists, promoters and touring schemes with the nations network of rural libraries.

Through the sharing of knowledge and resources the project sought to raise the ambition of libraries, programming a diverse range of arts to help expand their cultural offer, engage new and existing audiences and deliver a successful arts programme.

The TAIL Project has included online and in person conferences, workshops, talks, and artist showcases. Our one to one mentoring provided libraries and artists with the chance to share ideas, ongoing challenges and best practice.

The Project included the commissioning of 5 library specific touring shows right across the UK. This included Commissions in 2020 with Tessa Bide’s COVID safe ‘Anarchist’s Mobile Library’ in the Midlands, and Spot On Lancashire’s ‘At Home Magazine’, a creative activity paper distributed to 2500 library members during lockdown.

In 2021 we commissioned the Coalesce Dance Company who toured their piece ‘The Old Green Time Machine’ to East Riding and North Lincolnshire Libraries with Rural Touring Scheme ArteryLive/Blaize. A co-commission with Farnham Maltings saw Marie Klimis’s immersive audio experience ‘I Am Bird’ touring to libraries in Buckinghamshire and Surrey.

Our final commission in 2022 is with Doorstep Arts and  Villages in Action, a rural touring scheme based in Devon. Libraries and artists from the local LGBTQ+ community such as Beyond Face Assistant Producer Sonia Thakurdesai and multidisciplinary artist Tom Stockley will come together through discussion, workshop and performance based sessions to inspire a future of programming in libraries that is more diverse and inclusive.

There now exists a wealth of evidence based research showing that creative experiences can create community cohesion and connectedness, reduce isolation, loneliness and anxiety. Engaging in arts activity has proven to help improve self-esteem, enable us to better process emotions and boost our overall mental health.

The TAIL Project will come to an end in December 2022 but the NRTF will continue to work with the network of rural touring schemes and artists that have established the exciting potential of libraries to become recognised as community-rooted cultural hubs.

For more information go to: www.ruraltouring.org/touring-arts-in-libraries-tail-project/

Tessa Bide’s ‘The Anarchist’s Mobile Library’.