New Programs Lead to New Partnerships
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Lightning talk delivered at Academic Libraries Supporting Entrepreneurship Symposium, March 2, 2017. This talk focuses on collaborations associated with the Cline Library MakerLab at Northern Arizona University.
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New Programs Lead to New Partnerships
- 1. New Programs Lead to New Partnerships Presented by Janet Crum Head, Library Technology Services Northern Arizona University janet.crum@nau.edu
- 2. Some context Northern Arizona University Public university, 28,710 FTE (25,612 undergrads) Located in Flagstaff – about 68K population, very rural surrounding area Cline Library Heavily used in-person (over half a million visits last academic year) as well as online Repurposing space, focusing on technology and collaboration
- 3. The MakerLab No money to renovate facilities Used a former copy room – lots of power and Ethernet, all we had to do was paint Couldn’t add ventilation or noise abatement LSTA grant partially funded equipment Focus on 3D printing and electronic prototyping First MakerBot Innovation Center in the West 20 3D printers 3D scanning 3D design Electronic prototyping kits (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Little Bits, etc.) available for checkout Soldering Some hand tools
- 4. Interdisciplinary collaboration from the start Initial advisors – faculty from sculpture and mechanical engineering Helped us plan for different types of uses from the start Leveraged an existing partnership Other faculty involved in the program More engineers Visual communication Design thinking and innovation Always ask: Who else should I talk to?
- 5. 3D printing for coursework by discipline: fall semester 2016 Print Jobs for Courses: By Discipline Art 83 Astronomy 1 Biology 1 Chemistry 4 Communications 14 Education 5 Engineering 188 Physics 2 (blank - First Year Seminar) 1 Grand Total 299
- 6. Community collaborations 1 Flagstaff Unified School District High school robotics team Exploring collaboration with local high Native American residential students Connected by exhibiting at local science festival Flagstaff Public Library Making as part of summer reading program Possible onsite demos at various branches (including in very rural, underserved areas) We contacted them to explore potential collaborations
- 7. Community collaborations 2 Small businesses and startups NACET = Northern Arizona Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, a startup incubator Coconino County SBDC = Small Business Development Center, part of federal Small Business Administration SBDC contacted us before project started. Connected us to NACET. Local science festival Flagstaff STEM City – an educational nonprofit Local commercial makerspace/tech shop
- 8. Outreach – new users, new partners In the next few months Makerfests – with Admissions Coconino Community College Next year or 2 Local arts community The Flagstaff STEM community – just beginning our outreach USGS National Park Service (Grand Canyon and more) National Weather Service Astronomy (Lowell Observatory)
- 9. Lessons learned New services lead to new relationships—and new relationships enhance new services Who are likely users (on campus and off)? Contact them! Always ask: Who else should I talk to? Build and nurture relationships Reach out – who might be interested/able to help me? Casual conversations – chat, explore possibilities. Meet in person if possible. Maintain the relationship Ask for advice Share info on new developments Announce/invite to events
- 10. Questions?
Editor's Notes
- Nearest major metropolitan area is Phoenix, 140 miles away. Repurposing space: last several years, including updated group study, graphic design and media production, and a high-tech classroom.
- Describe size of room briefly – a medium-sized conference room plus some tables just outside
- Partnering with faculty from such different disciplines helped ensure that we would accommodate the very different needs of artists and engineers. For example, we included a 3D sculpting program (Zbrush) as well as engineering software. Students from art and engineering have been are biggest users so far. We had worked with the mechanical engineering professor when developing our high-tech classroom. He recommended we work with the sculpture professor, who he was working with on a grant-funded project using 3D printing. Our initial partners helped put us in touch with faculty in other disciplines who were either using 3D printing or interested in making—again, across disciplines.
- Our interdisciplinary collaboration has paid off – a bit. This table shows the number of print jobs users identified as being for a course where they specified the course (this information is purely voluntary, so actual usage for courses could be higher). Engineering is the largest user, followed by art, but there is at least some course-related use from other disciplines. It will be interesting to see if we see more usage from other disciplines as more faculty learn about the MakerLab and what it can offer their students.
- Unlike many academic library makerspaces, the MakerLab is open to the public as well as faculty, staff, and students. We want to be a community resource. Challenge: we can’t compete with private enterprise. Education/community service OK. Note: fall semester we had 62 print jobs from people not affiliated with NAU, 7% of all print jobs. Not a big number but we expect it to grow.
- 1. Example: built relationship with mechanical engineering professor when constructing high-tech classroom 3 years ago. He became a key partner for the MakerLab and helped us find other interested faculty. Another engineering faculty member is considering writing the library into one of her grant apps.