Library Makerspaces - Planning Your Space
Planning Your Makerspace
Planning for your makerspace is not much different from any other
community needs response planning.
It is first essential to determine what the needs of your community are, and
then respond to those needs. A very essential part of this process is
community engagement. The notion of a makerspace involves leveraging talent,
human resources, and knowledge that exist within your community to bring
people together to invent and create. The process not only involves making
things but also the building of relationships among people and the sharing
of ideas.
It is essential to know your community, complete a profile of your
community, and actually get out into it to engage local organizations, here
are some basic questions to ask:
- What are the goals of the makerspace? What are your targeted areas or age
groups? A lot of this depends on local interest, human knowledge (both
library staff and community volunteers), and existing physical space.
- What spaces or groups already exist in the community or nearby
communities (e.g. are there local maker clubs, colleges or universities,
or other groups)? Are you able to share their knowledge, learn from
their experiences, or partner with them?
- How will you use your space? Will it be a permanent space, or will
it travel to different parts of the community, or neighboring
communities? How will programs be structured?
- How will the makerspace be funded? Are grants available? Would local
community business, funders, government, or organizations be willing to
invest? There may be sources that would allow you to try makerspace kits, items,
or programs prior
to investment.
- How will your makerspace be evaluated, and what will you learn from
evaluation? Is there an interest for additional items? How might the
acquisition of additional items benefit the community?
Online Resources Available Made Possible through the Library Innovation
Studios (makerspace) Project
Between 2017 and 2021, thanks to a grant provided by
the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Nebraska Library
Commission and their partners developed templates, trainings, resources, and
plans to share directly to 35 Nebraska Public Libraries who hosted a Library
Innovation Studio makerspace for a 20-week period. Now any library or
makerspace can benefit from the resources that were developed through this
project.
When planning your space, check out the resources on
the Library Innovation Studio project
pages to include: recorded
webinars, space needs chart, community engagement, communications and other
useful resources and templates related to makerspaces.
Logic Model
We have created a generic
logic model
(with thanks to our partners at UNL) to provide an example of a graphical depiction of common makerspace implementation at your library.
More Planning Resources: