Museums, libraries and the Norfolk Record Office will offer a host of opportunities to boost your knowledge later this month.

National Adult Learners' Week runs from Saturday, May 18 to Friday, May 24 and celebrates the benefits of lifelong learning.

Norfolk's museums will be staging a number of events which will teach visitors about the history of the county.

The Castle Museum Study Centre will host an illustrated talk by natural history curator David Whitehouse called 100 Million Years of History Beneath Our Feet on Monday, May 20, while Strangers Hall will explain all about life in Elizabethan Norwich through an exploration of the Tudor portrait of Elizabeth Buxton two days later.

Later that day, Bridewell Museum will look at the city's technological and mechanical highlights from history including the world's first wire netting machine and Caley's chocolate enrobing machine.

At the Norfolk Record Office, at County Hall, learners will be taught how to research their family history on May 21 during a free hour-long talk.

And Norfolk's libraries are linking their Adult Learners' Week events with Dementia Awareness Week, which runs from May 19-25.

Sites at Dereham, Fakenham, Great Yarmouth, Stalham, Thetford and Wymondham will be holding free two-hour workshops throughout the week for people who live with or help care for someone who has dementia and who want to get ideas for activities that are suitable for people with the condition.

The county council's adult education service will also have a number of classes running as part of its summer term including a one-day beginners' workshop in digital photography.

Jennifer Holland, assistant director of community services at Norfolk County Council, said: 'There's a great deal going on during Adult Learners' Week to promote lifelong learning, and I hope there are plenty of adults in Norfolk who feel inspired to take up a new interest or develop a new skill.

'Aside from some of the more obvious and quantifiable benefits that learning can produce, it can be really exciting and invigorating to learn something new, challenge yourself and find out about a subject that you didn't know about before. It can be genuinely life-changing in some instances.

For more information about the special Adult Learners' Week events in Norfolk, visit www.norfolk.gov.uk/libraries, www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk, and www.norfolk.gov.uk/archives.