We were delighted to welcome some VIP guests to Calibre this week to plant fruit trees as part of the Queen's Green Canopy initiative.

Did you know that there is now another way to listen to your Calibre audiobooks? We have joined the well-known library app Libby, by OverDrive, which allows you to download audiobooks to your phone or tablet and listen instantly.

We are hoping that this year's Christmas fundraising appeal can raise £101,000 to keep our service running, providing thousands of members with the much-needed comfort, joy, and inclusion our audiobooks bring.

It’s Libraries Week, and this year's theme celebrates how libraries support active and engaged communities. One of the ways many libraries impact the community is through the valuable provision of book groups.

We are thrilled to announce that this year we are the accessibility partner for the world-renowned Hay Festival. Usually setting up camp in Hay-on-Wye, this year Hay is coming to you, by broadcasting its free online content 26 May – 6 June.

Just before Christmas, we released the much-anticipated Play Calibre streaming service, making it even easier to enjoy the collection of great audiobooks available on our website. Also, our titles became available on the Dolphin EasyReader app for smartphone and tablet users to take full advantage of the audiobooks on offer.

An update on our new streaming and download services and best wishes for Christmas from our CEO, Anthony Kemp

From today we have two new and improved ways for you to listen to our audiobook collection. We have a brand new streaming platform that will give you an incredible user experience, and Calibre audiobooks are now available to download through a new accessible download app.

Sadly, due to a local outbreak of Covid-19, we have made the difficult decision to close our offices until Tuesday 29th December. Our phone lines will be taking a break but members can continue to listen online.

This year Libraries Week is 5-10 October, the annual celebration of the best that libraries have to offer. 2020's theme is 'sharing the books that shaped your world' - we thought this was the perfect opportunity to share different ways members can enjoy Calibre Audio, with our friends at In Your Pocket.

Could you to take part in the 2.6 Challenge and help raise money to help us to continue to run our free audiobook service at this challenging time. Our audiobooks are lifeline to many of our members, particularly as so many are self-isolating.

I hope you are keeping well during these awful times and that, in a small way, we are helping you through the situation. We are passionate about looking after our members and bringing a little joy into your lives.

First and foremost, I would like to thank you for your continued loyalty, support and donations, even during these uncertain times, it is really appreciated that you have taken the time to get in touch with us. Our thoughts go out to all of you who have been affected by this unprecedented situation.

After very careful consideration in these very challenging times, Calibre Audio has today made the decision to temporarily suspend all physical operations to maintain the health and wellbeing of its employees, volunteers and our members.

Thank you for your continued support of Calibre Audio. It means a great deal to us and, as we approach these next few difficult months, we hope that your books will bring you joy and support to what is a tough outlook. We are doing our very best to navigate these choppy waters whilst making sure that you have access to the books that you love to read.

A time to “educate out prejudice and make LGBT+ people visible in all their rich diversity”, as well as a great excuse (not that we needed one) to look at some of our newer LGBT+ books in the Calibre library. So get ready to wrap your ears around these titles.

Here's a list of February's new additions to our library.