LIBRARY chiefs in Bury are hoping that soon they will be able to read all about their own success - in the Guinness Book of Records!

On Tuesday, April 13, a mass recruitment drive to sign up 1,000 new members for Bury libraries was held.

And although the figure only reached the 600-mark there is still a chance it is a record-breaker.

The event was staged as part of the National Year of Reading and was run under the 2000 for 2000 initiative, an attempt to sign up two thousand new members between now and the Millennium.

Town hall staff were targeted, with council offices and departments receiving visits throughout the day from determined library workers. Mrs Margaret Vince, Bury's National Year of Reading co-ordinator, said: "The Guinness Book of Records are interested in any new record that we might set. We are just waiting to find out whether we have been successful."

So far the National Year of Reading initiative in Bury has brought a whole range of successes. They include Summer Literacy Schools, open book collections targeted at new adult readers, and National Children's Book Week.

Other projects have included Bookstart, which has brought story times for the under-5s to local libraries, while Storystart has allowed the placement of multi-cultural picture books in health centres, doctor's surgeries, and dental practices across the borough.

Councillor Siobhan Costello, the council's cultural services spokesman, said: "When we started with National Year of Reading we never envisaged that before it finished we would be attempting to set a world record!"

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.