2021-07-30 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 9, Issue 3
Featured Story
Makerspaces and Culture
Maybe the potential in those terms fills you with excitement. If that’s the case, fantastic! But if those terms kind of fill you with an undefinable sense of dread, you’re not alone. Providing the maker materials that are of interest to your community can be an intimidating hill to climb, especially with technology advancing at a fast pace and different communities being interested in different aspects of makerspaces and maker culture. Do you get a little bit of everything or focus on the things your community members have shown interest in? What if you just had a handful of people really vocal about drone technology and no one else comes in to use it? What if you get the entire thing funded, purchased, and set up just to find that the community response is lackluster? These are all completely legitimate concerns, each of which can send you down a rabbit hole of despair that spirals and makes the entire project feel insurmountable. It doesn’t have to be that way!
The idea of maker culture is, you guessed it, making. There’s no rule to how a makerspace needs to be set up or what needs to be included in it. Maybe you have the budget for low-tech craft materials as the first step in your space. Gather odds and ends and have a crafty maker night to get people used to the space and to the idea of open creativity at the library. If you want to get started with some tech, small robotics like Ozobots are easy to learn and use. Cutting machines (such as the Cricut®) can help users create thousands of projects with paper, cloth, vinyl, chipboard, and other materials. Cricut® machines specifically have intuitive user interfaces so they’re easy to use and can be used across platforms, allowing makers to move from their tablet or phone to a computer and keep working on the same project. Sewing machines are another relatively low-tech option depending on the model and allow makers to create tons of things even a needle and thread and some fabric scraps can be a great start!
Regardless of the type of maker area you envision or are comfortable with, the most important thing to remember is that you don’t know what you don’t know it’s okay to learn alongside the people who use your library’s space, just like it’s okay to say you don’t know the answer to a reference question but that you can find it. Learning together is part of the fun, and arguably the goal, of a successful makerspace.
– Mallory Snow
Fail Forward
We’ve all been there. You pour your heart into a program, and no one shows up. You try something new, and you fall on your face. Sound familiar? Fail Forward is the place to share your failures, and give you the opportunity to share what you learned from them. Did you promote your program in a different way after no one showed up? Maybe you took a new approach to the new thing you were excited about? Awesome! Share your story via our online form so others can learn, and realize that failure is often part of the process.
Disc Polisher Clog
My library recently got a fancy new disc polisher (an ECO AutoSmart, for the curious), which came with lots of bottles, pipes, liquids and doodads. And a lengthy manual, of course. I eagerly set it up, calibrated it, and tested it on some gnarly-looking copies of LEGO Batman. Satisfied, I shut the polisher down, and promptly forgot about it.
Weeks later, some discs came in that needed a polish. Finally, I had a chance to put the machine to use! Unfortunately, I’d forgotten a note in the manual: the polisher needs to be primed or run daily to prevent clogs! Fixing the pumps took some elbow grease and patience. Lesson learned: read the manual, and take those maintenance tips seriously!
– Simon Clifford
Crush Corner
Is there a library you follow on social media who is always doing new and exciting things? How about a blog you follow that inspires you? What about a new idea, book, or resource that you want to share? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who or what they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!
Madison Library District
This month, I’m totally crushing the Madison Library District. They recently added a new After Dinner Story Time on Thursday nights at 6:30. This is such a great idea to have a program time for those caregivers who can’t attend with or bring their children during the morning hours! Check them out https://www.madisonlibrary.org.
– Mike Sloan
SPLAT explores the ever-evolving library world and supports library folks as they adapt to meet the needs of their communities. Library folk throughout the state of Idaho volunteer to serve on the Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT). Learn more about SPLAT at splat.lili.org
SPLAT is brought to you by the Idaho Commission for Libraries and was made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-246156-OLS-20). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.