Baby book time is becoming a regular fixture at city libraries and proving so popular that it is set to be expanded throughout northern NSW.

A session for parents and children aged under two was held at Adamstown library yesterday.

The program moves to Wallsend today and the inner-city tomorrow.

It is designed to give parents an opportunity to share a love of reading with their baby, and uses stories, rhymes and music to help develop early literacy skills.

"It's kind of a modelling program so we can show parents you can read aloud to very young children and it will have benefits for them," Newcastle Region Library public programs co-ordinator Carol Edmonds said.

"It's also encouraging parents to visit their public library to develop a reading habit [with children] at a very young age."

Benefits included phonic awareness, recognising relationships between pictures and text, vocabulary and book handling skills.

The libraries developed baby book packs, lent more than 10,000 times in the past year.

A website will be launched in the coming weeks.

Mrs Edmonds said the Newcastle program was being expanded to Taree, Forster, Port Macquarie, Armidale and Ballina with Newcastle Permanent Charitable Foundation's support.