5-Part Webinar Series: Developing and Sustaining a Community-Centered Makerspace
Are limited staff, space, or budget preventing you from creating a makerspace in your library? Did your maker programming pause due to the pandemic, and you’re not sure how to get it up and running again? Are you wondering how to develop maker programming that can be flexible and responsive to the unexpected? Based on the Makers in the Library Toolkit, this webinar series showcases steps for building and sustaining a maker program in any library and introduces an ongoing process that incorporates, shares, and values insights of the community.
Each session focuses on various steps of the design process while highlighting a collection of practical, adaptable tools that promote a balanced and inclusionary process not only for creating makerspaces but also conducting evaluation across diverse settings. This workshop is presented by the co-authors of the Makers in the Library Toolkit along with special guests from libraries around the country, including rural, urban, and suburban settings.
[Webinar 1] Listen and Discover: Connecting with Community
We begin our journey focused on the people in your library and community, spending time understanding their talents, interests, and resources. Relationships take time to develop, so it’s best to start here to lay the foundation. This asset-based approach allows the process to grow naturally, rooted in community needs and library capacity.
Recorded on April 6, 2022 as part of a 5-week webinar series hosted by Infopeople
[Webinar 2] Brainstorm & Prototype: Out of the Box Thinking and Testing Ideas
This part of the process should stretch your imagination and generate a wealth of ideas for different ways to build a program in response to earning from the community. Then you can give a few of the ideas a practical test to see how it goes in real life.
Recorded on April 13, 2022 as part of a 5-week webinar series hosted by Infopeople
[Webinar 3] Implementation: The Nitty Gritty of Planning and Preparing Creative Maker Experiences
To help you think through all of the steps needed to make your makerspace happen, we’ve made this week 90 minutes and divided this section into 2 parts: Prepare and Launch. Prepare starts with setting concrete goals and making a plan to achieve them, while keeping in mind your budget, the activities you want to offer, and the environment you want to create. Then, in Launch, we move into how to staff your space, along with the training and operational systems you need to have in place.
Recorded on April 20, 2022 as part of a 5-week webinar series hosted by Infopeople
[Webinar 4] Reflect & Refine: Using Evaluation to Strengthen Programs
Our process empowers your maker program to be nimble, responsive, and striving for continuous improvement and growth. This involves developing systems and habits for documenting and reflecting on how the program is going, as well as refining the program to make it stronger. Reflection can be a daily practice for individuals, but program staff should also periodically reflect as a team too, perhaps monthly or even weekly until the program becomes more established.
Recorded on April 27, 2022 as part of a 5-week webinar series hosted by Infopeople
[Webinar #5] Amplify & Grow: Marketing, Fundraising and Professional Growth
With your makerspace programming launched and in effect, the focus shifts to sustainability. Each and every one of you has a part to play in the sustainability of your makerspace—which inherently includes asking for donations (whether through fundraising or grant writing), building strong partnerships, and most importantly, marketing your makerspace through telling the stories of the impact your programming has had on the community.
Recorded on May 4, 2022 as part of a 5-week webinar series hosted by Infopeople