Prominent among its achievements has been the Lottery-funded pilot Programme Officer’s post, which has just come to an end.

The three-year pilot allowed the poetry library to clarify its education strategy: to promote the enjoyment of poetry as an art in itself and as a way of approaching other subjects; to encourage children and young people to find in poetry a source of pleasure and a means of self-expression; and to encourage teachers and pupils to make use of the immense resources in the library’s collection.

School workshops were linked into a range of exhibitions and activities.

Training teachers comes under the library’s work, and Matthew Fitt provided a training day in Scots language teaching to develop new classroom skills.

The library also ran its first poetry and architecture competition with the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, and received more than 1,000 entries. Supported by a free resource pack, teachers all over Scotland asked classes to turn their everyday environment into prize-winning poetry.

This year’s winners will be asked to sit on the judging panel for 2004-05.

For further information, tel: 0131 557 2876 www.spl.org.uk