Amy Vecchione & Stephanie Milne-Lane
2019-06-04
Boise State University’s Albertsons Library
Amy Vecchione #
- MakerLab has had a charge, starting from when it opened in early August 2015, to work with faculty to meet information needs on Boise State University’s campus
- BSU’s MakerLab has done more with instruction than any other library we’re aware of
- Most people in makerspaces at the time the MakerLab started were in engineering
- at BSU, they partnered with people from Materials, from Chemistry, did podcasting instruction; often stations with equipment put out and allowing people to explore
- that was pedagogically sound, but they didn’t know quite what they were aiming at initially
- arduino instruction for other library professionals
- how to teach 26 students how to sew when only have 3 sewing machines?
- often what’s being taught isn’t the explicitly stated content, but rather modeling a process of problem solving (MIT origins of making / makerspaces article)
- alternate sewers, coaches, observers; then a lot of
- Discussion question for the audience: What have you made? (Active Learning Session)
- fancy dresses
- salads
- sundial that’s worn as a wrist watch for a student’s theatre costume
- focus on receiving new information through making process
- Maker Competencies & IMLS Grant Partnership (Spring 2018)
- Philosophy 306: Stephen Crowley
- History 346: Leslie Madsen; “In Her Shoes” multimedia assignment on telling Idaho history starting with shoes
- Maker Competencies (website that showcases BSU professor’s assignments?)
- https://library.uta.edu/makerliteracies/competencies
- feedback on competencies was often about how they weren’t unique to MakerSpaces, but rather “just good teaching” (according to an Education professor)
- Amy says that she thinks the Maker Competencies kind of miss the mark in terms of being unique to MakerSpaces
“The Mission of Librarians is to Improve Societty Through Facilitating Knowledge Creation in their Communities” - R. David Lankes, Atlas of New Librarianship
- Discussion question for the audience: With that thing you said you made earlier, how did you construct knowledge?
Stephanie Milne-Lane #
-
2018 fieldwork focused on emerging technologies; went to ACRL Roadshow on Framework for Information Literacy
- found that one MakerLab project fits all the ACRL Framework frames; “Tactile Aids for Teaching Statistics to the Visually Impaired”
- “Authority is constructed and contextual”: blind student was authority here? (I missed this)
- “Information creation as process”: lot of iterative version, using feedback from visually impaired users
- “Information has value”: articulating copyright, etc… chose to go with open access licensing
- “Research as inquiry”- extends beyond academic world
- “Scholarship as conversation”: creative commons, so can be refined further by future users
- “Searching as strategic exploration”: instead of just searching right database or publication, instead searched for right materials as well as learn that their goal didn’t already exist in Thingiverse or elsewhere
- BSU MakerLab Toolkit made in part by conducting structured & unstructured interviews of librarians
- https://makerlab.boisestate.edu/maker-instruction-toolkit/
- this was in part how they realized that there was a gap in library literature about how to use makerspaces for instruction, rather than just to small “how-to” instruction on how to make things
Conclusions & Questions #
- Amy says she’s honored to have been able to work with Stephanie, there were lots of “aha!” moments working with her
- Amy draws our attention to https://makerlab.boisestate.edu/maker-instruction-toolkit/matching-the-makerlab-with-acrl-framework/ in particular
- libraries truly are the home for makerspaces, because interdisciplinary lens on information suits libraries the most
Q: what’s the future of making in libraries?
Amy: I’d like more people to see links to the Framework and see how information is involved.
Stephanie: I very intentionally made it clear between the making and the Framework frames. (They have a draft of an article on this, apparently.)
Q: If you could waive a magic wand and have all faculties use makerspace, what would that be?
Amy: I’m not sure, but what I’ve seen this summer is close. Faculty with students working in their labs, seeing students as undergraduate researchers; having lower volume of printing Pokemon (which she stresses does have value) allows the space to be used more as for research & information creation. Amy’s still doing a number of consultations, just a change in the type of usage. Would need to grow the space profoundly to meet this kind of interaction depth.
Stephanie: Need to document lesson plans; make toolkit super diverse & always add to it so people can continually be inspired and see how experiential learning connects to whatever is done in higher education. Stephanie often hears that makerspaces are a fad that are going to go away, but she increasingly sees it as related to information.
Q: Would it be better to split the “Print Pokemon” space from the research space?
Amy: I think it’s better to have them together, to show that it’s a continuum. For example, the person who did a marble run is now working on an IRB for working with at-risk youth in k-12 environment focusing on experiential learning for at-risk youth. One lead to the other.
Another audience partipant says that having & displaying Pokemon on student’s desk allowed them to be informal ambassadors for MakerLab & making, plus taking ownership of making.
Amy rephrases that as “learning information, sharing information, etc.”; she can’t unsee how much information is tied to learning to make, sharing knowledge / potential of making, adopting identity of being a Maker, etc.
Amy shows us https://makeher.diy.plymouthcreate.net
Amy’s working on makerspace (“themes”) to share out; demonstrating what library makerspaces do
Amy’s ultimate goal isn’t to rewrite or refine makerspace competencies but rather than refocus on how makerspaces lead to ACRL Framework for Information Literacy frames
Audience participant (I think Leslie Madsen?) talks about how Maker competencies process asked them to add equity, diversity, inclusion initiatives sort of at the end, rather than incorporate deeply into the process: for whom, to what ends, what types of access, etc? It felt like library values came in only at the end… Refocusing on ACRL Framework might better center the EDI values.
Q: How do you deal with issues of ownership, authorship, intellectual property in MakerLab?
Amy: Great Q, librarians and staff made a handout for students to help parse out whether it’s technically owned by the University (i.e. faculty designing something related to their own discipline), whether it’s the student’s intellectual property, etc. Gives Amy a good chance to talk about copyright with students.