Creating a makerspace can be intimidating for some library workers, especially if you’re working with a small space and small budget. When it's safe to re-open your library, where should you spend your limited dollars to ensure the best possible experience for your science learners?
A makerspace — for anyone who isn’t yet aware — is a collaborative workspace where people have the opportunity to construct or explore just about anything they can imagine.
The goal of a library makerspace is to let patrons learn through hands-on experimentation and from collaboration with others. And yes, that CAN be achieved in a small library. Griswold Public Library, located in a small town of about 1,000 in southwestern Iowa, is proof.
Heritage Makers is a series of makerspace workshops that highlight a "maker" from history. The workshops are planned in conjunction with heritage or awareness months for which our library already has celebrations and programming, such as Women's History Month, Disability Awareness Month and Native American Heritage Month.
This summer the Skokie Public Library offered a drop-in program entitled Meet at the Lodge every weekday for youth entering grades 3 through 5. Meet at the Lodge was timed to be in conjunction with the free summer lunch program we offer through the federally funded summer lunch program; our goal was to offer a convenient and free opportunity for kids to have a mini-camp experience from 12 to 2:30 p.m. every day (lunch lasted 60 minutes, Meet at the Lodge lasted 90).
Greetings, my fellow teen library programmers!
