Four successful winners of the Future Leaders Travel Bursaries Award will be jetting off to raise awareness of the UK's museums, libraries and archives sector with their peers overseas. The British Council in partnership with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) have announced the winners of the 2006-2007 Future Leaders Travel Bursaries. The four successful applicants are:

A new vision for library services aimed at young people was explored at the Fulfilling Their Potential conference this week. Beverley Hughes, Minister for Children, Young People and Families gave a key note address, urging local authorities to ensure libraries are treated as essential partners in helping young people achieve their full potential.

Public libraries are responding to communities' needs and are ready to face 21st century challenges, say two reports published today by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). An evaluation by The Tavistock Institute of Government's most significant plan for libraries to date - Framework for the Future- shows that continued partnership work with communities and other services are helping libraries to be fit for the future. A second report shows the success of the leadership development programme.

If you are thinking of buying or selling art, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) has created a website that should be every art and antiques enthusiast's first port of call. Launched today, the Cultural Property Advice website contains vital information on collecting, buying and selling art, antiques and antiquities legitimately and with confidence.

A new website featuring films of life on the home front in Britain during the Second World War is being launched this week. Screen Archive South East, at the University of Brighton, in partnership with six other English Regional Film Archives, is launching the site as part of a £225,000 film archive project which forms part of the Big Lottery Fund's £10 million Their Past Your Future (TPYF) programme, and was created with funding distributed by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.

Three of the country's stand out collections have been formally recognized by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) through its Designation Scheme. Having met the rigorous criteria of the scheme, collections held in Warwick, Reading and London have received this highly-regarded status.

Nominations are now being sought for the Jodi Awards 2007. The awards previously recognised excellence in museum, library and archive website accessibility - but this year, for the first time, the awards will include any project that uses technology to provide access to collections for disabled people. Launched in 2003, the Jodi Awards now recognise museum, gallery, library, archive or heritage projects that demonstrate commitment to using technology in the service of accessibility.

At present, most London library services operate their own membership systems, so that if users want to borrow books, music or films from more than one borough's libraries, they have to join each one separately and carry more than one membership card.

Culture Minister, David Lammy, has placed a temporary export bar on a bronze sculpture of Marsyas after Pierre Legros the Younger, one of the first baroque bronzes to arrive in Britain. This will provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the sculpture in the United Kingdom.

A third of British adults have lied about reading a book to appear more intelligent according to a new survey. A cunning 33 per cent of adults have confessed to reading challenging literature to appear well-read, when in fact they haven't a clue what the book is about. But 40 per cent of people said they lied about reading certain books just so they could join in with conversation.

Culture Minister, David Lammy, has placed a temporary export bar on an eighteenth-century embroidered banyan and waistcoat. This will provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the banyan and waistcoat in the United Kingdom.

Visits to England's public libraries continue to rise, and a wider range of books have been bought for them, despite a further reduction in expenditure on books - and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council encourages local authorities to continue investing in the future of their library services.