Making it in libraries today - part 1

Zinesters hard at work via Brokelyn

Should a movement built on creativity have a definitive construct and place? Is a makerspace bound by four walls and a 3D printer or is it present in the hearts and minds of a community?

I took a while to understand the point of adding makerspaces to libraries because I wasn't connecting with the concept in any way. I think a lot of library staff would feel the same if a 3D printer suddenly materialised and people went mad for making monochrome plastic phone cases. 

So I've been exploring papers and posts and discovered that makerspaces didn't originate in libraries ;) Is it a hackerspace, makerspace, TechShop or FabLab?

'Dale and MAKE Magazine registered makerspace.com and started using the term to refer to publicly-accessible places to design and create (often times in the context of creating spaces for children).'

I think the term 'makerspace' works well for its origins, but libraries are made for 'maker culture'. Katie Behrens  article hit the money for me: Library as Incubator Project wants you to look at programming as collection development.  
'What if the information most needed by a patron is not recorded information, but rather information contained in someone else’s head?'

Our library service's mission is to connect people with information, learning and lifestyle. Other library services may have a mission to connect people with books (or so it seems) which is perhaps why so many try to shout their relevance with 'we're more than just books!' For me, books and the physical library building are just two parts of the library service. We know that people learn in different ways, and learning by doing also constitutes an information exchange. 

When libraries use the term 'makerspace' the focus for me is on the wrong part of this borrowed phrase. As public libraries move to providing 'the tools to help patrons produce their own works of art or information and sometimes also collecting the results to share with other members of the community'  (A librarians' guide to makerspaces: 16 resources by Elyssa Kroski) the emphasis is on people and making. When Slatter and Howard ask in their study 'What are the issues and challenges of creating makerspaces within Australian public libraries?', 'within.. public libraries' suggests to me activities in a space in a physical building.  My emphasis is more; 'What are the issues and challenges of creating a maker culture in Australian public library services?' 

It's early early days, but something that can help is embedding maker culture in the Standards and Guidelines as we embed it in our library services. And we must make those connections for staff as well as for our community. 

Two great quotes that highlight the importance of instilling that culture of making: 'Maker culture' refers to the whole ethos and process of fiddling, tinkering, experimenting, failing, reworking, recycling, upcycling, hacking, and creating. Maker culture does not depend on a perfect setting or dedicated space. It’s a way of looking at the world, creatively testing the boundaries and playing with what you have. In the Library With a Lead Pipe

The future library will be about 'delight, surprise, engagement, serendipity, curiosity, and to fulfil that vision we need to keep these things in mind: delighting, surprising and engaging with our community; providing       serendipitous discovery of knowledge and culture; and encouraging curiosity... Libraries will be measured more by what they create and help others to create, not so much what they collect.' Mal Booth at UTS on Creative Futures

Do you picture a makerspace contained in a room, or do you see a shared culture in the hearts and minds of your people?

Local library makerspaces you should know about - Mill Park, Auckland, Moonee Ponds, Mackay, The Edge, Victoria Park ...

Katie Behren's post made the connection for me between library services and maker culture and Tania Barry alerted me to STEAM instead of STEM that all the 3D printer fans were raving about. In the next post I'll explore the 'A' and why I'm posting about maker culture in a reading blog. 

#mynextread

A recent #mynextread conversation including
feedback from a recommended author.

Following my earlier post on form-based readers advisory services and the great two day CODES Conversation which raised the use of social media in readers advisory service, I'm pleased to introduce Mary Barnett and Cathy Royal from Chattanooga Public Library as guest bloggers.

Mary and Cathy run #mynextread on Twitter and Facebook. This is their story.

We decided to launch the #mynextread social media promotion after hearing about Michigan’s Capital Area District Library’s BookSleuth idea.

The idea is fairly simply and really fun. We ask our patrons on Facebook and Twitter to tell us the titles of the last three books they’ve read so the #mynextread librarian can recommend the next book they might enjoy based on those previous selections.

We tweet and post the results back to each patron along with some info about the book or author and a link to the material in our catalog. The patron can then simply log on to their online library account with their library card, place the recommended title on hold and have it delivered to their nearest branch.

It’s alot of fun to read the responses to some of the suggested material. Most everyone is intrigued if not outright excited. Overall they seem really pleased to have a brand new book to look forward to, in most cases something they had not considered before the #mynextread librarian’s suggestion.

The “mynextread” librarian is actually Cathy Royal who works fulltime in tech services at the Chattanooga Public Library as the Popular Material Specialist. She is responsible for purchasing most of the material for the collection.

Prior to joining the library staff in 2001, Cathy worked in bookstores for 10 years and has decades of additional professional experience working in books, video rental and other assorted media. She was also a former contestant on Jeopardy!

Cathy says she loves the challenge of trying to find a title that seems to fit with what the reader has already read. She says she often relies on intuition.

“...and although my connections may look tenuous, I have occasionally minded my personal collection for ideas, I always double check to be sure our library owns what I have in mind.”

So far we have tried the promotion during the lunch hours of 11-1 on Fridays and Thursdays. We’re open to playing with time of day and day of week on this to fit the online habits of our audience. We’ve had anywhere from a dozen or more submissions, which keeps Cathy very busy, to just two or three. You have to be flexible when you try new things so you can adjust to how the public is or isn’t participating.

The best part is having an enthusiastic secret well-informed ‘weapon’ like Cathy Royal as the #mynextread librarian. She is an avid reader and book connoisseur and is totally into public engagement.

“I think #mynextread is like a mental obstacle course, or literary speed-Jeopardy, with something more important that money involved. Although I’m anonymous for now, my reputation and that of the Chattanooga Public Library is involved, and I want as many patrons as possible to enjoy this as much as I do.”
....

Mary Barnett, CPL Narrative Specialist / Content Marketing

Cathy Royal, CPL Popular Material Specialist

Librarians at festivals!

Nadia Patch in
Brisbane Writers Festival program 

Shoutout to a great readers advisor - Nadia Patch - who was recently on the program for Brisbane Writers Festival. 

Tell Me What To Read featured Nadia with Suzy Wilson, Felicity Vallence and Katherine Lyall-Watson who 'scoured the shelves for a no-fail selection of cracking reads'. I like this collaboration between library staff, bookstore staff, publishers and creators.

Jo Beazley and I interviewed Nadia, Reading Coordinator at Brisbane City Council Libraries, for our research project - she provided some early inspiration on training, collaboration and online content.

There are many literary festivals around the country - are other librarians involved in festival presentations? I know Vassiliki Veros and Ellen Forsyth (both NSW) have presented at GenreCon. I think it's a clever way to match our goals of raising the visibility of reading and of librarians as reading experts.

Beyond The Lavender Keeper Reading Map

We did it! Jo and I continually advocate for (intra and interlibrary) collaboration and staff development in reader services as a result of our research project. To support Fiona McIntosh as touring author for Get Reading! to three Queensland libraries, five of us got together to create the Beyond The Lavender Keeper Reading Map. It's available online now through our libraries and on our blogs. View it online or download the pdf to print.
I think the Get Reading! guide online should have a link to Trove like we have the catalogue links so that people could see if their libraries have each book. 
You can download the first chapter of The Lavender Keeper to read via GR! 

Thanks so much Sally Pewhairangi (Waimakariri Libraries), Jo Beazley (Toowoomba Regional Libraries), Louise Pieper (Gold Coast Libraries) and Tina Cavanough (Moreton Bay Region Libraries). I enjoyed working with you all, and I hope your communities love the reading map!

We collaborated on Googledrive and email.

 I've also added the books to our library's GoodReads account so there is another way to  discover the titles. 

My favourite story so far was Kate Morton's The Secret Keeper. The quote I used perfectly encapsulated the story and the theme of betrayal for me: 'The pair of them huddled together and Dolly listened as Vivien said, 'Go to the railway station and buy yourself a ticket. Get on that train and ride it all the way to the end of the line. Don't look back.' '

I love these comments about our previous reading map:

(Cath Sheard) Wow! I love what you and Alison have created. It’s informative and visually exciting. 

(Paul Brown) ..There is even a Trans-Tasman partnership happening at the moment between a New Zealand and an Australian librarian in the construction of a highly visual and engaging Reading Map.

Are you one of the many who have enjoyed The Lavender Keeper and its sequel The French Promise? Are you inspired to go beyond these with our map? Happy reading!

Booktalks and reading maps: Beyond Chocolat

QR Code link on back cover of
all books from Beyond Chocolat
(idea via The Swiss Army Librarian)

Sally Pewhairangi and I created a sumptuous reading map in May to support a booktalk program and future book discovery. That was such a positive experience we're doing it again.

Read about our Beyond Chocolat program at projectREADja  and here at Finding Heroes.

Fiona McIntosh, author of The Lavender Keeper and this year's must-read The French Promise, will be touring Queensland in September. Our reading map program is designed to extend the value of Fiona's visit for our communities. Her tour will be popular and we'll then have a lot of people keen to read The Lavender Keeper (if they haven't already), read her other books (we have 20 in the collection), and... then what? 

Invoking our developing contextual reader services knowledge, we're creating a way for people to get the best reading experience from TLK by following its tangent themes. 

The best thing about this new reading map though, is that we have three more librarians and libraries joining us in a collaboration.  That's five of us working together online, developing collection knowledge, creating resources for our communities to support their reading, and providing direct promotion for our collections (and getting to know each other better too).

If you've read The Lavender Keeper and have some ideas on which themes and books people would enjoy next, let me know! We could include your titles in the map.