Innovative buildings and services are making Hume City Council's libraries and learning centres known far beyond the northern Melbourne municipality.
This year the Australian Library and Information Association named Hume Australia's favourite library service. The Hume Global Learning Centre-Craigieburn also won the Danish Agency for Culture's inaugural International Public Library of the Year award at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions congress in Lyon, France.
The awards salute a reputation for boosting social inclusion and lifelong learning opportunities that dates back to the opening of Hume's first global learning centre in Broadmeadows in 2003.
Working with the council, community groups, educational institutions, government departments and community members Hume has fostered a learning village philosophy that guides strategies and programs.
Marea Ekladious, manager learning communities, moved into local government from a social work and youth programs background in the not-for-profit sector. She says Hume's efforts to promote learning have been embraced by its members who come from more than 166 different countries and speak over 120 languages.
Hume operates three libraries and a mobile service.A second learning centre - in fast growing Craigieburn - was funded by the Rudd Government through its stimulus package and opened in 2012.
"The Broadmeadows centre attracts more than 40,000 visits a month and the Craigieburn centre has become an iconic building with a beautiful children's area and garden.
"It's wonderful to see parents there with their children," Ekladious ays.
Homework clubs operate at both centres and a Multiversity initiative offers a number of courses through Deakin and La Trobe universities and Kangan Institute.
With bilingual story times, homework clubs for teens, and programs to help elderly migrants use Skype to stay in contact with family and friends in their countries of origin, no-one is too young or old to benefit from the programs.
Tania Barry, coordinator of technology, resources and special projects, joined the team this year. She has already rolled out iTots - a program that expands parents' and grandparents' knowledge of programs and online apps appropriate for children.
It is part of an approach to technology that made Hume the first public library service in Australia receive e-smart certification under a program sponsored by the Alannah and Madeline Foundation and the Telstra Foundation to keep children safe online.
Barry, a career librarian who worked at Wyndham Library Service and Yarra Plenty Regional Library, says showing adults meaningful ways for their children to use technology benefits the whole family.
"It is a way to engage people in the use of ICT and show people learning apps," says Barry.
"Sometimes people question if we should be encouraging families to let toddlers use tablets and smartphones but they are going to do it anyway and we can show them a really good way. We rigorously test apps."
Barry says library spaces need to be flexible and able to adapt to evolving community needs and changing technologies. She has brought the makerspace concept - popular in libraries in the United States - to the Broadmeadows, Craigieburn centres and Sunbury library.
"People from school age to seniors will be able to use technology creatively - they will be able to learn stop motion animation, augmented reality, programming, coding, 3D printing and freeform crafts. We hope to inspire people to use technology to be creative."
