LIBRARY MAKERSPACES ARE informal, creative spaces where patrons can learn, invent, build, and make in partnership with the library and fellow makers. They offer fantastic opportunities for libraries to provide valuable tools, machines, resources, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) skills to their community through instruction or simply by providing access to their spaces and equipment. As more and more libraries design makerspaces of their own, the need to plan engaging programming around them increases. This is a one-stop guidebook on how to do just that!
63 Ready-to-Use Maker Projects is an all-in-one recipe book for makerspace programming that is chock-full of practical project ideas for libraries, each authored by librarians and makers. The projects range in cost, topic, and difficulty as well as space and equipment requirements, so there is something for every size and type of library, even those without makerspaces.
Projects run the gamut from sewing and crafts projects such as do-it-yourself chain mail, creating cardboard standups, and hydro-dipping flower pots to high-tech and robotics programs such as building solar robots and creating an ultrasonic speed detector. Also included are digital media projects such as video editing to remix films and light painting, as well as a plethora of milling, soldering, and cutting projects, programs involving 3D printing, and circuitry, wiring, and wearables projects. Each project includes step-by-step instructions, a materials and equipment list, learning outcomes, and recommendations for next projects.
Public, school, and academic librarians, including those in libraries without a dedicated makerspace, who are looking to learn and create programming around makerspace topics will benefit from this resource.
Ellyssa Kroski
Director of Information Technology
The New York Law Institute