Libraries: Innovative Spaces to Dream, Think, and Create.
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Libraries are more than a storage house for books; they are friendly places for discovery where creativity and learning is nurtured! Do it yourself (DIY) culture has permeated into libraries giving patrons of all ages a chance to dream, think, and create interesting things. These collaborative learning environments, sometimes called makerspaces, are spaces where people can share innovative ideas and learn new skills and are a perfect fit in libraries primarily because it helps to enhance a library’s mission, which is to encourage lifelong learning. Presented at TEDx Tampa Riverwalk on August 29, 2015.
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Libraries: Innovative Spaces to Dream, Think, and Create.
- 1. Libraries: Innovative Spaces to …
- 3. "Every age thinks it's the modern age, but this one really is." Tom Stoppard from 'The Invention of Love'
- 4. Why I became a librarian …
- 9. Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give it to humanity.
- 10. Sisyphus was to roll a large rock up a hill, only to watch it come back down over and over again …
- 11. What do you see?
- 12. “If libraries are no longer storage spaces, I think they become knowledge performance spaces.” Source: @rmazar
- 14. Read more and borrow at: http://goo.gl/b7QSBU
- 16. Read more at: http://goo.gl/mftoH2
- 20. Share experiences … Photo credit: Chris Demmons
- 27. Playtime!
- 31. "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." ~ Marcel Proust
- 34. 3D design/printing should be in “3D”
- 35. Circulating iLab
- 37. Big things can happen in small spaces and with small budgets!
- 38. Libraries: Innovative Spaces to
- 40. spcilab. .com Connect with the iLab … iLab@spcollege.edu /groups/spcilab .com/spcilab. .com/innovation-lab-makerspace-spc
Editor's Notes
- First off, thank you for inviting me to share my story here at TEDx. It is a huge honor! Plus, I love to brag about my library and highlight some of the truly amazing things we are doing with limited resources. I think there are many librarians working in a variety of libraries who have “ideas worth spreading.” My library is just one out of thousands doing really great things for their communities, so again … THANK YOU … for listening to mine. I will extend this invitation again later, but if you haven’t been to your local college or public library in a while GO and see what you’ve been missing!
- Most of what I do is, in fact, TED: Technology, Education (OR it could be considered Edutainment), and some Design. Technology wraps itself around most everything we do these days and as Tom Stoppard says “Every age thinks it’s the modern age, but this one really is” … I think you would all agree that this statement resonates truth today!
- The things we all have access to these days is truly astounding. For example, I can use a conductive pen and draw a circuit on paper. I can interact with objects within virtual reality. I can melt plastic and draw things in 3 dimensions. I can build an analog synthesizer from electronic modules. The world can be changed with technology! [The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A. E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. ]
- During my childhood, like most of you probably did, I spent a lot of time in libraries. I remember browsing the books and feeling like I was on an information quest: discovering new things every day. During college, I spent a lot of time in libraries too. I loved being surrounded by information. It was like a vortex of intelligence. I researched everything (including records! The USF Library had VINYL!!) I used to hang out at my local public library and started to mingle with the reference librarians there too. They were brilliant!
- One person who I miss terribly is John Iliff. He was extremely generous and would go above and beyond the call of duty for anyone. It could be a 5 year old kid doing homework or a business person doing “businessy” research. Everyone deserved quality research and John would not stop until the person in front of him was satisfied. John was also one of the first, if not THE FIRST, person to get library catalogs ONLINE. He was writing Perl scripts on homemade Linux boxes, building web pages from scratch, ALL WHILE being kind and unpretentious to EVERYONE … I was impressed. I found my niche. I got a job where John worked: the Pinellas Park Public Library. He was now my supervisor and I learned a lot from him! I knew now that I wanted to be a librarian, but the “John Iliff” kind of librarian.
- As a college student, I had 2 amazing opportunities; and luckily, I had the support from my mom, grandmother, and grandfather and from everyone at the library where I worked to do both of them. First, I was able to work in the Music Division of the Library of Congress archiving Leonard Bernstein’s collection. This was amazing work! I got to handle letters written by US Presidents to Lenny, his music scores, Frank Zappa asking for help with 200 Motels, and much much more.
- I also had an opportunity to tour all of the Library of Congress and I got to see amazing things like a real Beethoven manuscript that one of the archivists was repairing. You could see where Beethoven spilled his ink. I was able to hold the manuscript! I lived in Washington DC for several months and it was all about DISCOVERY. I toured the city, the museums, the library of congress, the bars etc. I wrote a Field Report and hand wrote it in HTML. My professor was impressed that I created a web-based version of my Field Report. This was in the mid 1990s and not many people were writing web pages who were NOT in the computer science field.
- My second opportunity was while I was a graduate student at USF. I was asked to be a liaison between Florida Public Libraries and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I was flown out to Seattle for close to two weeks to get trained on Windows NT. This is when the foundation was donating computers to rural library systems who couldn’t afford computers. I started getting my techie cred setting up these huge computers and training library staff across Florida on how to use them!
- Fast forward a bit … I wrote a paper in Graduate school that compared librarians to Prometheus -- the Titan who stole fire from the gods in order to give it to humanity. Fire was considered by ancients as being a tiny spark of the sun (i.e., a physical manifestation of a deity). By bringing fire to mankind, Prometheus has therefore enabled humans to partake in “all things divine” and even allowed them to aspire to become gods themselves. I like to think librarians can offer people intellectual sparks that may become a huge fire or passion down the road.
- My professor wrote on my paper that he loved the analogy, but that librarians and educators could also be like Sisyphus, a king who was punished for chronic deceitfulness by rolling a large rock up a hill, only to watch it come back down, repeating this action forever and ever … UGH! I can see it sometimes. ;)
- I got my graduate degree in Library and Information Science in 2001 and have worked in libraries ever since. This is a library. It is beautiful. It has a ton of books on shelves. IT IS EMPTY! Libraries have been places of consumption for a very long time. They are starting to switch to places of PRODUCTION.
- SO … if libraries are no longer storage spaces THEN SHARE YOUR SPACE. Let the people do things. Let them experience things. We are now sharing pretty much the ENTIRE Seminole Campus for the upcoming Pinellas Comic and Maker Con. It is October 17th and it will be awesome! I hope to see you there. I will personally give you a tour of our innovation lab! Bring your kids, bring family, bring friends.
- I wrote this grant and others for selfish reasons. For years, I’ve been wanting to do 3D design/printing, program Arduino and Raspberry Pi, build and control robots, experiment with circuitry and sound, etc. etc. NOW I GET TO DO THIS OFTEN AS PART OF MY DAILY WORK DUTIES.
- The lab has a growing list of technologies and the grants are starting to write themselves. The iLab is in “perpetual beta” and will never be done. We keep re-inventing ourselves.
- Brandon and Stephen, iLab volunteers, working together to revive an archaic PC.
- It is my goal to stimulate creativity to enable people to explore their imaginations. I learn so much guiding people to these tools. I am not an expert with technology, but know enough to have a lot of fun.
- This was from last year’s first Hour of Code event. Stephen, from the last picture, led the class and it was his first time teaching. He loved it and wants to do it again! Many of our lab volunteers teach classes and do excellent work. They inspire me!
- Drone video. My friend Donny Klotz recently shot a drone video of a dog being swept off an Hawaiin cliff and it went viral. He taught a workshop on drones for the iLab!
- I get to learn from so many people at my job. I love it!
- I am very lucky to work with a variety of people in the iLab, which is housed in a joint-use facility: public and academic library. We get, for example, cosplay people who want to 3D print parts for their costumes and gamers who want to create new game pieces; however, we also get inventors who want to test out their ideas. I spoke with a dentist the other day who wants to test some 3D prints for his practice in the lab. It is pretty cool that we could have something to do with an invention or a tool that may change the world.
- Every once in a while I get the retired engineer or … plumber … who has a secret invention that they want to 3D print before trying to get their idea patented.
- The maker movement isn’t all about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. IT IS ABOUT COMMUNITY! IT IS ABOUT SHARING IDEAS AND WORKING TOGETHER TO CREATE SOMETHING USEFUL. Reach out to other organizations and people who will strengthen your mission, which, for me, is FOSTERING AND ENRICHING LIFELONG LEARNING.
- I wrote a Letter of Support for NASA’s Education/Public Outreach initiative. We will help co-develop activities based on the STEM educational framework. The E/PO is funded by NASA and is a "provider of educational materials for students, educators, scientists, and the public.“ We are a littleBits Global Chapter. I get to meet with a huge global community of makers thanks to MIT’s Media Lab unhangout system powered by Google Hangouts. Very awesome stuff!
- Watching kids play with these technologies is enlightening. They are not afraid to make mistakes. Adults can learn a lot from kids! I am thrilled to be able to offer technologies through the lab that people, in many cases, don’t have access to. We are a technology playground!
- Again, the lab encourages mistakes. We aren’t giving grades so there are no worries. Remember that Penicillin was an accidental discovery that changed medicine FOREVER!
- Color outside the lines!
- My daughter’s first reaction when using our homemade virtual reality headset. We built one of these to hold our interest until our Oculus Rift Developer Kit arrived. We built a hologram out of a CD case and cell phone. I am going to do an Instructable for the tablet version next week.
- This makes me feel wonderful inside. Jyeesha won our Character Design Contest, which was part of our Animation Lecture/Workshop series hosted by Echo Bridge Pictures -- an award winning animation company located in St. Petersburg. She is now working for them because she won the contest and animators at Echo Bridge were judges! It is a dream come true for her and she deserves all of it!! She was so happy and kept thanking me. I told her that she has the talent and that we just provided the connection. Does the Prometheus analogy fit here? Probably not, but it is nice to think about.
- 3D printing mask
- I also get to work with college students. This is a group of Honors students at St. Petersburg College who are working on an Action Research Project focused primarily on 3D printing prosthetics. I would love to see them partnering with E-Nable and SPC’s Prosthetics and Orthotics program to make their research more meaningful. I am confident that they will do some amazing things.
- We now let our Raspberry Pi and Arduino kits leave the lab so people can work in the comfort of their own homes. They can check out technology similarly to the way they check out books and other traditional library items.
- Splicing the unknown with the known and sharing experiences with others is my main goal in life – professionally and personally. My mission is to give people access to technologies, PEOPLE, organizations, and information so that they can take it to unknown territories and perhaps one day create something that makes lives better! I tell everyone I work with that if they have, what they think is a good idea, to GO WITH IT! Who knows were it will take them. Take things apart, turn stuff upside down so people can view it in new ways … be surprised and inspired. The Innovation Lab: a place to Dream. Think. Create.