I
have been a member of the OZTL Listserv since 2007. I work as the
sole librarian in the library of a small, independent school in
Sydney – a school which does not employ a dedicated Teacher
Librarian. OZTL provides me with professional and collegial advice
and support without which I would spend a great deal of my time
re-inventing the wheel.
The
List was set up by CSU for all members of the Australian
Teacher-librarian community or for any people with a genuine interest in
teacher librarianship and/or school libraries to share information
and help with inquiries (OZTL-Net). It also works as a 'lobby group'
at times when funding to school libraries is under threat and helps
individuals with advocacy ideas when their particular libraries are
facing the razor gang. The advocacy arguments help me consolidate my
function as I work with an overseas curriculum which doesn't have the
school-library tradition of Anglo-Saxon countries, and with teachers
who don't understand the value of having an information centre in a
school.
My one reservation about the Listserv is the occasional rant
against librarians working in a teacher-less library – so I now
only respond off-list to members.
It was on the
Listserv that I first came across Makerspaces.
Although it was
immediately obvious that there is no chance I will ever find myself
inaugurating one of these in my current library, there was one thing
that did chime with my own experience: children love to teach. And
when they teach, they are consolidating their own learning. (They
particularly like teaching 'teachers'!)
Libraries have a
long history of being more than just collections, and many services
for children include craft and creative activities. Makerspaces,
which were known as hackerspaces but changed the name because of the
negative connotations (Helmrich & Schneider, 2011), are simply an
extension – and one which should appeal to today's children who are
of the Net-generation. The Makerspace provides a bridge from their
experience and knowledge of IT to design and manufacturing.
In a Makerspace the
Library provides tools (many of which are expensive), bits of
e-waste, raw materials like wood or plastics, and fundamental
training for using the tools. Issues of workplace health and safety
need to be addressed, as does funding and the physical space itself.
A recent survey (John, 2013) showed that libraries can get quite
creative in solving issues – partnerships with local business might
result not only in donations but also in instructors – and one
library set up a mobile truck to house the Makers (Good &
Doctorow, 2013).
Teens (Helmrich &
Schneider, 2011, advise libraries get parental permission prior to
participation) then work in a collaborative process to master the
tools at hand and tinker with the materials provided to repair
equipment or create projects. The activity fosters their imagination
and creativity in a field which they enjoy: digital engineering.
Some libraries even use them as a '”student Geek force” to mentor
adult Makers (John, 2013).
Less ambitiously,
but in a similar vein, the 'student Geek force' at my school could
conceivably be used at lunchtimes to show their less-advanced
comrades how to use the many creative IT programs to make movies,
manipulate images, write music...
Topic: Makerspaces; Activity: Engage in an e-list
References:
Good, T. & Doctorow, C. (2013). Manufacturing makerspaces:
Retrieved from:
http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/article/manufacturing-makerspaces
Helmrich, E. & Schneider, E. (2011). Create, relate and pop @
the library. New York:
Neal-Schumann Publishers
John. (2013). Maker Spaces in Libraries - The state of the art
December 2013. [Web log post].
Retrieved from:
http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/practitioners/3d-printers-and-maker-spaces-in-libraries/maker-spaces-in-libraries-the-state-of-the-art-december-2013
OZTL-Net. (N.d.). OZTLNET
– A community for information professionals in Australian schools.
Retrieved from: http://oztlnet.com/
Hi Sybille,
ReplyDeleteYes, makerspaces are definitely the "in thing" with libraries at the moment. Here in Melbourne, there have been makerspaces developed at Mill Park and The Dock public libraries - the latter just opened on the weekend, and it was quite an impressive space, along with recording studios, an auditorium for small theatre and musical performances, a 3D printer, and computer suites for graphic design, music compilation, etc. What was also interesting, when visiting this new library, was the absence of the word "library" anywhere. It was just "The Dock".
Whilst I can definitely see the importance of these facilities as part of a community hub, sometimes I also feel like it distracts us from the intrinsic value of having a library. After all, if we move further away from curated information collections, and closer to places for creative expression with technology, then what happens to the need for a librarian?
References:
Melbourne Library Service (2014) Makerspace. Retrieved from http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/MelbourneLibraryService/WhatsOn1/Pages/DigitalSkills.aspx#Maker
Yarra Plenty Regional Library (2013) North's First Technology Maker Space Established at Mill Park Library. Retrieved from http://filestore.yprl.vic.gov.au/media_releases/YPRLPressReleaseMillParkMakerSpace2013.pdf
Your post has further piqued my interest, and my attention has just been drawn to this article on the Library Journal website (Mitchell, 2014). He asserts the idea that libraries are not about books, but about information - not only its access, but also in content creation.
DeleteAnd information comes in many forms - not just text, or A/V, but in robotics, performance and art! And so the maker space was conceived.
I still wonder, aren't we just playing with semantics, and using it as an excuse to widen the library brand. I mean, couldn't you take an art studio, or a music school, or a computer lab, and say, "From now on they shall be called makerspaces, and will be considered part of the library."
It doesn't quite sound right in my mind - and I'm a librarian! I'd be curious as to how the general public would respond to this paradigm shift in information science?
Reference:
Mitchell, J (2014) Beyond the Maker Space. Retrieved from http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2014/05/opinion/backtalk/beyond-the-maker-space-backtalk
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI admit to sharing your reservations, Andrew! I do sometimes wonder what the word 'Library' is coming to... Certainly I believe that it should be more than a silent place to use books - I think of a vibrant information centre and exchange; and I love it when my school library buzzes with activity during lunch times. Those activities include board and card games and also computer games: and this is, I think, at the root of the whole. Our information and entertainment sources are now to be found on the same gadgets and young people simply skip from tab to tab. So I think that the Makerspace movement is an extension of that. We need to take care, perhaps, that in our embrace of the new, we don't neglect the old - and the physical spaces of some libraries will make that difficult.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Mitchell article - I'm looking forward to reading it properly later today.
Like you Sibylle, I am a recent discoverer of maker spaces. It wasn’t in fact until I started this subject that I really have had any more than a glancing reference to them. They are not present or even really thought of in any library that I am associated with but I am fascinated by the concept. Especially as I agree with you about children loving to teach, and nothing more than teaching the teachers. What really fascinates me is fluidity of the concept, it can be absolutely anything it wants to be (funding permitting), and just the concept itself is so full of ending possibilities that it simply awes me. I attended a conference, discussed in my blog, where they turned a storage level full of junk in the library over to the community and said 'this belongs to you, what do you want to do with it? 'It is now a fully functioning, technologically innovative space based purely on what do you want, what do you need and contains everything from a robotics station to a loom! I would like to see these develop more in NSW public libraries.
ReplyDelete