Episode 803: Makerspaces

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Welcome back to Season Eight of Linking Our Libraries! We are so happy to have you with us this season!

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange. Our members are libraries of all sorts: public, schools, academics, special libraries, archives, and history centers. Join us in working thorough skills library staffers can use to be more successful in their work! 

One of the most frequent questions we get from our members is how they can start to set up a makerspace. And of course, there are as many possible answers to that as there are libraries.Today we will walk through a few basic ideas, to be sure you can feel confident in your own library’s makerspace.

The Basics:

We have talked to several people who were worried they would not be able to set up their makerspaces the right way. So we have good news to share right away: There is no “right” way to do this! Your makerspace can be as individual as your library. As with so many things, you just have to get started. You can always refine it as you go along.

Getting Started

If you decide you are ready for a makerspace, it is a good idea to spend some time thinking about what you want to do, and what makes sense for your library’s needs. You do not have to know everything about where you are going, just make a plan to get started. What population are you serving? What kinds of things can do first? What sounds interesting to you? What do you have on hand? That is where you start.

Then think realistically about your budget. If you are not getting any money from your school to buy books, it is probably not realistic to assume you are going to get money for an expensive makerspace. You may be able to request some startup money from your principal, a parent’s group, a library system, or some outside source. Work through all those details before you make final plans for the makerspace.

As is important in any plan, you need to talk to members of your community. What kinds of interests do you have to share? How about any other library staff? Or teachers? What about students? Or parents? Or other library patrons? Ask them about their hobbies, interests, and things they would like to learn.These answers can be the basis of your makerspace.

A makerspace can be anything. You want to provide an experience of creating something. It might be something the patron can hold in their hands, or something they have created in a virtual space. If you can design the makerspace to let patrons have a defined project they can do, that may help new users to get underway. And then people who would prefer to freestyle their makerspace time can do so.

Now we have a plan, and we are ready to start the makerspace!

Small Makerspaces

Most people will do best starting with a small makerspace. Look around the library now, and see what you have. If your community group consists of teeny kids, crayons and fun coloring pages would be a good early project. Start collecting old magazines – they are great to cut up into collages or other art projects. Have scraps of fabric? Learning to sew buttons is easy, and a very useful skill. 

Then you can advance from there. Scraps of wood, hardware pieces, or other miscellaneous materials can be turned into art projects with some glue. Thin wire and a pound of beads, with a few small tools, can become all sorts of jewelry. If you have books you have weeded from your collection, googling the wide variety of book art will give you some fun ideas.

Of course, right now we are all wearing masks and that is not going to change for quite a while. Sewing their own masks can be a way for your community members to take some pride and ownership in their mask – making it just the way they want it. There are a lot of different ways masks can be constructed, and even more ways for them to be decorated and personalized. And you can set up the supplies for people to make masks to donate to others in your community, or to people outside your library.

You can also get some basic electronic things for students and patrons to build and work with. Lego makes some fun programming tools that give the users a real thing to build and manipulate with basic coding skills, and there are many other companies doing similar work.

There are no wrong places to start, so dive in and get some projects underway!

Large and Fancy Makerspaces

Of course, there is always the option to spend thousands of dollars and a lot of staff time, creating something very large and very fancy. There are no limits to what can be added into a library’s makerspace, other than space – and our increased virtual life even makes some of that less important.

One very cool large-scale makerspace is in the Chattanooga Public Library. They were early to start this kind of program, and have devoted their entire fourth floor to this project. Their website describes it best: “The 4th floor is a public laboratory and educational facility with a focus on information, design, technology, and the applied arts. The more than 12,000 sq foot space hosts equipment, expertise, programs, events, and meetings that work within this scope. While traditional library spaces support the consumption of knowledge by offering access to media, the 4th floor is unique because it supports the production, connection, and sharing of knowledge by offering access to tools and instruction.”

Some of their current features include:

  • Lulzbot Taz and MakerBot Rep2 3D Printers (fees: $0.06 per gram of PLA used) *
  • Laser Cutter (20″x12″ cutting area) (no fees but must supply your own material) *
  • Vinyl Plotter (fees: $0.30 per square foot of vinyl used) * 
  • CNC Router ((by appointment only)
  • Photography Studio. Headshots and product photography (by appointment only) 
  • 4K Monitor
  • HTC Vive Virtual Reality Booth 
  • Screen Printing and Heat Press
  • Chattanooga Zine Library + zine making lab, button maker
  • Floor Loom
  • Sewing Lab with sewing machines, serger, embroidery machine *
  • Power Tools
  • Hand Tools
  • Soldering Bench
  • Arduino and Electronics Project Kits *
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Agile co-working spaces with white boards, projectors, couches, tables. 
  • Special Event Space with sound system, stage, and presentation equipment

Another very exciting example of a large-scale makerspace project is at the Nashville Public Library. “Studio NPL is an innovative, technology driven learning environment for teens aged 12-18. Daily workshops are mentor led, and focus on building 21st century skills in STEM, digital literacy, and career readiness. Whether you want to be an engineer, an inventor, a filmmaker, a photographer, a graphic artist, a musician, or anything else, Studio NPL has resources and the nurturing environment for teens to explore and engage their passions.” These studios are located in different branches around the city.

Here are some of their offerings:

  • Studio NPL Learning Lab Working with library staff and Studio Mentors, teen patrons use innovative technology tools to produce music and podcasts, photographs and films, 3D-printed designs, paper Circuits, E-Textiles, soldering, robotics, and more. If you want to wire it up, plug it in, or light it up, we have the tools and techniques to expand your electronic knowledge.
  •  Music and Audio Production Teen producers of all levels including songwriters, singers, rappers interested in producing their own music will learn how to make audio and music tracks using Logic Pro. Participating artists will have access to larger events and performance opportunities executed by Studio NPL and Southern Word.
  • Photography and Design Using DSLR cameras, studio lighting, and the green screen, you can engage in a variety of photo, film, and graphic design-based projects.
  • Film and Media Production Learn career readiness skills for video and television production; workshop will scaffold into production of fully produced video piece.
  • Creative Writing These workshops are for writers interested in creating short stories and other forms of fiction. Workshops lead to publishing a final anthology. For teens in grades 9-12.

Remember: there is no need to have your makerspace become so big! If you have resources of money, time, and people – great! Take on some big projects. And if not, look over some of the work they are doing and get a feel for things you could adapt in a smaller way.

Technology-Focused Makerspaces

You can also choose to incorporate technology into your makerspace, or to make tech the whole focus. The website Makerspace for Education has a lot of resources for coding in school libraries. “You can connect with people from all over the world to code robotics, machines, games and a wide array of digital maker projects.”

And you do not have to come up with the ideas yourself – there are a lot of resources available to you. One popular tool for learning coding is the program Scratch. “Coding has taken the educational world by storm, especially with the introduction of mandatory computer programming curriculum across the globe! Scratch is an educational block based coding language. Scratch has an active educator community that shares lesson ideas and student projects. This educational guide from the ScratchEd team can help teachers get started with their first lesson in scratch! This guide is part of the open source community and creative commons. It is free to download for classroom use!”

You can let people build robots and other technology toys and devices. You can set up an Hour of Code program, using materials from all kinds of sources. You can provide software not easily available in a classroom or at home, and let people come in to use it either for school, as part of  a small business, or just for fun.

Code with Google has a lot of resources available for educating everyone in computer science and tech skills. “More than 65% of young people will work in jobs that don’t currently exist1. Learning computer science skills helps students thrive in a rapidly changing world. Yet our research with Gallup shows that many students aren’t getting the Computer Science (CS) education they need—and teachers don’t have sufficient resources to provide it. Code with Google helps to ensure that every student has access to the collaborative, coding, and technical skills that unlock opportunities in the classroom and beyond–no matter what their future goals may be.”

We hope you aren’t overwhelmed now! There are so many great ideas out there to help you get started with your own makerspace. Make some plans, and just get started! 

Resources for you to consult:

Books Read

And now we have one of our favorite parts of each episode: sharing books! Each of us will share a book we are reading. Links to each book will be on our show notes page, with a link to Amazon.com. If you buy a nice book – or anything else – Amazon will give us a small percent of their profits. Thanks in advance!!

Conclusion

Thanks to you for joining us this week! It’s always better when you are here with us!

Here are a few quick takeaways from today’s discussion:

  • Make a plan before you get started. That includes some preliminary ideas about the makerspace’s purpose, a basic budget, and talking with some stakeholders to see what they think about the plan.
  • The idea of a makerspace is that people get to make things. Focusing on projects that include things they can take away from a session with you will make it fun for the users.
  • The most important thing is to just get started! You can always make improvements, and you should do that; but it never has to be perfect.

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Check back in with us next week for another library skill!