Are libraries “book warehouses” or “knowledge makerspaces”? The nature of “things” patrons create with library tools has changed in recent years as educators and libraries incorporate new technologies and new media in the learning experience and as methods of communication become increasingly (digitally) visual. However, this increasing complexity of tools has not changed the library’s central role of providing the space for information consumption, the training in support of various literacies, and support of knowledge creation in whatever form the researcher requires. The only thing that has really changed is the nature of the tools libraries support. Are we providing a broader array of tools needed to support multiple-media learning and literacy that enhances our relevancy to constituents—and to funding agencies? Join the discussion!
1. Evolving
Libraries:
What’s at Our
Core? Rudy Leon
http://campusguides.unr.edu/rudy_leon
http://deepening.wordpress.com
rleon@unr.edu
@rudibrarian
2.
3.
4.
5. Designing
Role of social spaces for
media in learning student
learning
Connecting the
library more The future of
deeply into undergraduate
curricular education
development
The place of Developing
technology in staff skills for
learning, and maximal
libraries flexibility
12. How do we do that?
• We have the content to hand
• We develop tools to make the
content findable
• We develop spaces to use the
content
• We provide skilled professionals
to teach, train, lead users to
content
13.
14.
15. In academic libraries, we build
environments where students are
enabled an idea, any idea, and follow it
• Bring to:
through to it’s end
• Develop knowledge & expertise using
information resources
• Create new knowledge (new to the
researcher, or to the world)
• Seek help & expertise
• Provide help & expertise
• Access resources otherwise hard to
locate
• Do it themselves, individually or in a
16. That sounds like a
makerspace..
• Bring an idea, follow it through
• Build your expertise
• Build something new
• Seek help & expertise
• Provide help and expertise
• Access to resources otherwise
hard to locate
• DIY, with the help of the
community
17. Ethos of library ethos of makerspace
• Bring an idea, follow it • Bring an idea, follow it
through through
• Develop your knowledge • Build your expertise
& expertise
• Create new knowledge • Build something new
(to you or to the world) • Seek help & expertise
• Seek help & expertise • Provide help and
• Provide help & expertise expertise
• Access to resources • Access to resources
otherwise hard to otherwise hard to
locate locate
• Do it yourself, or in a • DIY, with the help of
group the community
20. Image credits
• Bean: http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2224/2208733518_e734f4d6f0_o.jpg
• Puzzle pieces: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3551/3428960391_c1225d37ee_o.jpg
• All others, The Mathewson IGT Knowledge Center
21. Inspiration & Further Reading
• Brown, J. S. (2011). Internet Librarian 2011 Opening Keynote. Presented at the Internet
Librarian, Monterey, CA. Retrieved from http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17940819
• Hamilton, B. (2012a, June 28). Makerspaces, Participatory Learning, and Libraries. The Unquiet
Librarian. Retrieved from http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/makerspaces-
participatory-learning-and-libraries/
• Hamilton, B. (2012b, July 15). The Unquiet Library-A Makerspace Culture of Learning (Buffy Hamilto...
Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/buffyjhamilton/the-unquiet-librarya-makerspace-culture-of-
learning-buffy-hamilton-july-2012
• Jenkins, H. (n.d.). Jenkins on Participatory Culture at newlearningonline. In New Learning:
transformational designs for Pedagogy and assessment. Retrieved from
http://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-6-critical-literacies/jenkins-on-participatory-culture/
• Schiller, N. (2012, November 13). Hacker Values ≈ Library Values*. ACRL TechConnect. Retrieved from
http://acrl.ala.org/techconnect/?p=2282
• Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning cultivating the imagination for a world of
:
constant change. Lexington, Ky.: CreateSpace?].
• With Growth Of “Hacker Scouting,” More Kids Learn To Tinker NPR. (2012, December 23). NPR.org.
:
Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2012/12/23/167285991/with-growth-of-hacker-scouting-more-kids-
learn-to-tinker
Notes de l'éditeur
This talk was born at another Information today conference, at the John Seeley Brown keynote at Internet Librarian in 2011(Brown, 2011). It was, for me, one of those moments
It was, for me, one of those moments when everything shifts and all the disparate pieces – and even some you didn’t think were disparate -- came together into a crystalline, sensible structure.
It was, for me, one of those moments when everything shifts and all the disparate pieces – and even some you didn’t think were disparate -- came together into a crystalline, sensible structure.
So many things made sense At the time, I was looking to leave my position as Learning Commons Librarian, and Staff Trainer, and wanted to get back into instructional librarianship. So, all those BIG pieces were in my head designing spaces for student learning the future of undergraduate educationDeveloping staff skills (at all levels of the library) to allow that future to come into being. The place of technology in learning, and librariesInformation literacy and connecting the library more deeply into curricular developmentSocial media and if it had a viable role in learning, beyond a role in outreach and community building
And JSB said “dispositions”(Thomas & Brown, 2011). He talked about participatory learning. And he articulated for me the idea of knowledge of making.
And those disparate things gelled into one big picture. I walked around a bit stunned for a while, this big full egg had taken up residence in my head, and wasn’t really aware of all the pieces had that slicked together into this seamless whole, or how to talk about it. I went home, applied for jobs, did my work, and read things. Lots of things. That articulated a lot of the pieces that gelled together in that egg in my head. Tweets and blog posts and articles and TED Talks, by Howard Rheingold, Henry Jenkins, John Seely Brown. Slide decks and conference talks and tweets and articles by Char Booth, Buffy Hamilton, David Lankes. So many others.
And then, I moved into my new position. At a library that wasn’t a library, but was called a Knowledge Center. Because they meant it. They saw library the way I saw library: It’s about supporting researchers from sparking or finding their inspiration all the way through the final, finished product. Whatever it might be. 3D printers. Green screen. Large format printers. Instructional resources, SPSS. Knowledge production happens here, whatever shape the end product might be. Throughout all this, my inspiration, my movement forward, my embrace of what resonated so deeply with me – libraries are makerspaces. It’s what libraries do.At the same time, libraries struggled with their future identities, with the rise of e-resources and loss of monographic priorityAnd because I had had this paradigmatic moment, I really struggled with that struggle. But THAT struggle is what finally forced me to begin articulating this wordless resonance and action that I was inhabiting. What was I missing? How to understand this stress on the profession, and help move past it?
Who are we, if we don’t warehouse books?
Well, let’s define terms:Dispositions: According to JSB – can’t be taught. Can be cultivated. Inclinations in thinking, propensities. Participatory Culture : relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagementstrong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with otherssome type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novicesmembers believe that their contributions mattermembers feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created).“Access to this participatory culture functions as a new form of the hidden curriculum, shaping which youth will succeed and which will be left behind as they enter school and the workplace”(Jenkins)Making: A DIY ethic, creating something that didn’t exist before (we’ll get into this more deeply in a moment) Compare with the ethos of Library, Makerspace. Third support
It’s simple. This is what we do.
Content: p- or e-, book, monograph, score, video, data, code, people, seeds, …. Does my vs. your ownership matter? Or the physicality of the item? Findable: interfaces, catalogs, shelf lists, shelf labels, taxonomies, classification systems, …Spaces: these buildings. Built environments, designed spaces. Light, space, temp, hours, furniture, noise levels, … since the monks we’ve done this!People. The people!Given this – does physical items on shelves define us? Really?
Books warehouse – Mathewson Automated retrieval system is a book warehouse. Pretty darn new! Has this ever been who we are?? Built environment, designed to facilitate specific type of use of specific forms of content. Not book warehouse at all! But so much at the core of who and what we have always been!Even our most traditional understandings have been around access to information, not so much about the ownership and storage of the physical content.
How do people use our built environments> Do these uses challenge our identity so deeply? Or at all? (by the way – one of these is a hackerspace. Not a library. Can you tell which?)
Why does this parallel work? Because what our users get out of our libraries? Is the creation of something new. A new idea, and newly acquired piece of knowledge, a physical thing that never existed before… Our users *make* in our libraries. (Always have)If making is taking….. Is that so different than writing a paper, or making a video? Or designing a product, or writing code?