Making a Maker Space. Again.

At the library, I’m working with a team of really smart folks who want to offer the best opportunities for our patrons ((I’m still getting used to calling the people I serve “patrons.” But I like it.)).

One of the reasons I wanted to work with the Clearview Library District was the intensity with which they run programs and events. They – now we – are always hosting active, hands-on maker-y events. We were doing maker programming before it was cool, and we want to scale it up.

One of the biggest constraints on the library at present is the lack of physical space for all the events and activities we do. And as we want to expand our active, hands-on programming, that’s a problem.  Taking down.  Setting up.  Rinse.  Repeat.  And more activities and events than we have spaces to put them in.

We want a permanent makerspace of some kind. Two questions:
1. What do we want?
2. Where in the world will we put it?

This morning, at the #COMakerEd event, we decided for a few minutes to ignore the second question, and focus on the first, working through a quick ideation cycle to brainstorm as a team what we’d like to see. Because we support making of many types at the library – crafting, painting, gaming, robotics, cooking, etc – and we want to include more – the team realized that we need to build some spaces that privilege the types. But the genius idea ((I had stepped out of the room when the sketch on the corner of this photo was made.)) below is the idea to build a workspace in the middle that’s common to all interests.

One of the greatest assets of the library, the public library, is the public. We have such a wide variety of people with varying interests, passions and expertise. And at the library, they can mingle and intersect. The best projects, I suspect, will emerge from and within the diffusion of interests that can occur in a common work area. Different folks and different passions. Mixing it up.

We’ve got to solve the second question, and we’re working on it. But I’m so pumped to work in a place that wants to build and support spaces like these.