AN exhibition that is the culmination of a five-month art project involving people of all ages from the local community will take place at Great Yarmouth Library next week.

AN exhibition that is the culmination of a five-month art project involving people of all ages from the local community will take place at Great Yarmouth Library next week.

Since October last year a group of 200 volunteers from Yarmouth aged between seven and 87-years-old have been working with professional artist Charlotte Howarth to produce a collection of 10 pieces of art.

Each artwork is themed to demonstrate an element for which the town is well known, with historic associations such as the herring industry and the Great Yarmouth Rows - a network of narrow residential streets dating back to the Middle Ages - sitting alongside more modern representations including wind turbines and chips in a cone.

Visitors will have the chance to vote for their favourite artworks and the six most popular designs will then be carved into slate discs by the artist Charlotte Howarth and hung on the front of the library near the entrance. Parts of the carved designs will also be highlighted using gold leaf.

The group involved in the art project were drawn from different parts of the local community and included children from local schools, art students from Yarmouth College, members of local youth group Fusion, residents from Abberville Care Home and the art group at the Priory Centre.

Schools involved in the art project included: Martham Primary School, Caister Junior and High Schools; and Flegg High School.

The library on Tolhouse Street underwent a major refurbishment last year, made possible by a successful bid for more than �1.3m of BIG Lottery funding by Norfolk County Council's Library Service. Building work began in January 2009 and by September that year the transformation of the 1962 built library into a modern, multi-functional building was complete.

The redesign made better use of the vast, two-storey building and allowed the library to hold more books and many more PCs, 42 in total. It also created more purpose-built rooms and areas, including meeting and interview rooms, a children's activity area, arts and crafts workrooms, a function room with a sprung floor for sports and leisure activities and two gallery spaces which will house the community art project exhibition next week.

The exhibition is open until Saturday, and entry is free. Charlotte Howarth will be at the library from noon until 4pm next Wednesday to talk to people about the project and answer any questions.

For more information on Great Yarmouth Library visit www.libraries.norfolk.gov.uk.