LIBRARIES across East Lancashire are to get unproved wi-fi, faster broadband speeds and new free-to-use computers.

Spending of up to £2million was authorised by councillors for the upgrade last week.

Lancashire County Council's cabinet approved installing 584 public access computers to replace the current equipment across every one of its libraries.

Link to this will be measures to improve the public wi-fi and to increase broadband speeds to cope with the increasing levels of use .

They money will also pay for improving the printers so that members of the public will be able to print to a range of low-cost network printers at all libraries as well as enabling customers to use their own devices to print using the public Wi-Fi .

The programme will also replace 50 self-service units used to issue and return books.

Cllr Peter Buckley, Lancashire County Council's cabinet member cultural services said: "It is vital our libraries adapt to meet the demands and needs of how people want to use them.

"An increasing number of customers are using library computers or bringing their own devices to use our libraries as a work space. "We welcome this developing trend but we need to make sure that the computer equipment is up-to-date with fast internet connectivity and good wi-fi availability."