Find out about changes to our services and Christmas opening times on our Festive information page. To find out when your bin will be collected over the festive period, visit Changes to County Durham bin collections at Christmas.

Due to maintenance, the following systems will be unavailable from 11.45am on Tuesday 24 December until 8.00am on Thursday 2 January: our online Council Tax, business rates and housing benefit services, and our welfare assistance form. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Join the library

If you live, work or study in County Durham, you can join the library. Joining our library is simple and membership is free.

You can borrow up to twelve books for three weeks at a time and can borrow and return your books to any of our libraries.

Join online

When you join the library online, you can begin using our online services such as ebooks and online magazines straight away.

Visit Library Online to register

When you join online we will ask you to choose your home library. Once you have joined and collected your library card from your home library you will be able to use any of our libraries across the county.

Join in person

Visit any of our libraries to become a member, it only takes a few minutes and you can start using the library straight away.

You will also need to bring one form of identification with you which must include your name and address such as a driving licence, council tax bill, rent book, benefit book, bank statement, gas or electricity bill.

No proof of address? No problem! We can issue you with an interim ticket so that you can borrow up to three books and also use the computer.