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. 

Which book?

A lot of readers' advisory practice is geared toward the person-who-is-already-a-reader coming in to the library. Our role has been to respond to readers' questions of 'What do I read next?’. What is more challenging is to proactively strive toward achieving the goals set by National Year of Reading - addressing Australia's low literacy levels, and raising the status and visibility of reading.
Do we want people to be reading from our collections, or do we want them to be reading?
If RA is about finding the right book for your reader, then is it much narrower than reader services which is about achieving those NYR goals? Do we respond to media hype or do we build relationships with people in our communities?
Check out the links at the end to Auckland Libraries' programs.

An article on BookRiot today prompted me into this consideration of reader services being wider and deeper than I had originally thought.

'Not all people who read books are book people' by Sarah Rettger. 

What if we looked at our communities - not as members and non-members or potential members but as many different groups of people who we can reach in different ways. Yes, there was a rush on libraries and bookstores when Fifty Shades of Grey was published and promoted in the news. But then there was a lot of talk that the series got people 'back into reading'. So libraries ordered in dozens of copies and if they were quick enough librarians compiled read-alike lists to help those readers discover authors who wrote like E.L. James.
Did anyone ask the Fifty Shades readers what they wanted next?

Like Sarah Rettger said, 'Book people are making a mistake if we expect everyone to think about books the way we do. Those Category B customers? They don’t want to read a book. They want to read that book.'

Note - I too am using Fifty Shades as a generalisation for the purpose of illustration. 

Was any market research or evaluation done in libraries to see if the acquisition of twenty copies of this title led to a sustained increase in loans of similar titles? Or led to these borrowers increasing their borrowing? Maybe, rather than getting them 'back into reading', they're already readers of different formats and their focus was not the reading but the social side of the phenomenon. The London Fire Department could tell you.

Libraries that bought dozens of copies in the hope of somehow satisfying reader demand in that initial flashpoint period will still have missed the masses of people who bought the book at ever-decreasing prices at the bookstore or online. Instead of thinking that Category Bs are potential Category As, we need to raise the status of reading by recognising it as something that all people do to varying degrees. We need to find ways to reach people with reading in a way that is right for them. 

Two shining examples of libraries reaching people with reading come from Auckland Libraries.
For adults - Dark Night, also here  where Tosca Waera talks about one aim of the festival being to develop the libraries' relationship with its users.

For children - Mangere East's My Library Rules Bake Off Challenge. Brilliant stuff!

How do you connect people in your community with reading?