Teaching My City to Build Us a Bookbike

Posted on by pcsweeney

So this is my latest project and I’m really excited about it. Excited enough to blog! Which is something I haven’t done very often the last couple of months. But, anyway… We are going to be building a book bike for my library and I’m far more excited about our process for building it, than the actual bike itself. Let me tell you all the details.

1) Genesis
I’ve seen a bunch of book bikes in other library systems and they seemed like a really amazing idea. I was especially excited because in the community of one of the branches that I manage it would work out perfectly. You see, our bookmobile is too big to get down some of our streets, our community is only 3-4 square miles large, and its really really flat. There are also about a dozen charter schools in the area and small places that only need something for an hour or so and not long enough to necessitate an entire visit from the book mobile. There are also a bunch of small fairs and festivals and parades that happen in the area that the bookmobile is unavailable for. The bookBike would be perfect.

2) 99 Problems but a Boobike Ain’t one
I had been trying to find someone to build us one for a while but ran into some problems. I called quite a few custom bike builders and never heard back and from others I got some outrageous prices. There are a bunch of custom, kind of fun digital things I want to incorporate into the bike like Jason Griffey’s Library Box, wifi, usb ports, solar panels to power it all, and a bunch of other ideas. Because of all of that, and the complexity of the project, I kinda just put it on hold for a while.

3) Solutions are Always Good
A couple of months ago, I went on a tour of Techshop San Jose organized by Paul Sims and Ann Awakuni and then I organized a tour for just my library system. At our tour I met the manager of the shop and one of my staff started talking to him about a bunch of different projects (secret projects that I’ll tell you about later). We started talking about the BookBike idea. The manager said something to the effect of building it there. That discussion led to an idea of having our community come and build the bike! Two of my staff members were so enthused about this whole thing that they went and took some metal working and welding classes and are now the real leaders behind this project.

4) The Moderately Well Thought-Out Plan
We thought, what if we taught the community members to build the bookbike? Tech Shop has all of the tools, another organization unofficially (I’ll tell you who when its official) has said they’d be interested in donating materials, and we’d just need to pay for short memberships and classes from Tech Shop to cover their expenses. By doing this, the community members would learn to weld, solder, work with lasers, and learn a bunch of other skills and tools and we’d get a bookbike for free! It was a win, win, win!

5)The Execution of a Fail and a Win
Here’s where there is a slight fail and a slight win. About two months ago we put together some flyers, about two weeks ago we sent out a bunch of press releases, it was on our website, on our social media, we used the #maykermonday program as a kickoff point, we talked to a bunch of people, and just about everything else we could think of.

Well, only one person showed up. But it turns out that he was an architecture major, recent grad, and his thesis project was designing a library! He seems to be really excited about the project and we have three staff of mine, plus two of techshop, and he wants to get a couple of his buddies involved. In the end, I think this will be a really great project for our library and we’ve already thought of some other ways we can make some future ones even bigger and better! I’ll let you know how it goes.

Library advocacy 5

Have authors in your library for #MaykerMondays!

Posted on by pcsweeney

Hey librarians! Do you want some authors to come take part in your MaykerMonday events? We have a partnership with Togather to get authors interested in maker spaces into your libraries. Take a look at the details below and contact the amazing Dana Skirut for more details and questions.

About:
Togather is a free marketing tool that enables librarians to engage local communities with more great in-person experiences. Library events are an important way to connect and build relationships with new audiences, but turnout is hard to predict. Too often the programming doesn’t find demand, and valuable resources go to waste. Togather helps change this dynamic by making it easier to collaborate with local interest groups to plan more well-attended events. With Togather, libraries can leverage their strengths in research and curation to create enriching events that drive buzz about their services and bring in more patrons.

How Togather can help:

  • Access to authors: Togather has over 500+ authors on board, with some makers listed below. Have an author that you’re interested in, but not sure how to get in touch? They’ll do their best to make the connection!
  • Ideas for events: Not sure of the format for your event? Depending on your space, they can brainstorm some ideas for how to make the most of your class, talk or workshop — whether it’s in-person or the author is joining via Skype.
  • Custom event pages: Togather allows you to create a custom event page with plenty of sharing features to make it easier to promote your event. They’ll help set it up, and also provide a home for your library showing all upcoming Togather events.
  • All-or-nothing model: Not sure if people will want to attend? Set up a Togather event with an author and define a minimum attendance goal (e.g. 15 participants). Ask people to RSVP in advance to show their support. If there isn’t enough demand by a certain date, you won’t have to host an event for just two participants.
  • Raise funds: If your local Friends of the Library organization is involved, Togather can help you raise funds by making it easy to sell affordable tickets to your event.

Authors:
Here are just a few of their “maker” authors who are already interested in connecting with libraries around the country:

  • Kelly Rand, author of Handmade to Sell, which is full of useful business advice for those looking to make the leap into full time crafting, or wanting to expand into other areas of the indie marketplace.
  • Jeni Britton Bauer, author of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, an essential resource for making delicious and uniquely flavored ice creams, yogurts, and sorbets in your own kitchen.
  • Denise Grollmus, author of The Ohio Knitting Mills Knitting Book, which explores decades of traditional knitting patterns
  • Lori Sandler, author of the Divvies Bakery Cookbook, which features recipes for vegan treats that are sensitive to those suffering from major food allergies.

Contact:
If your library is interested in participating in MAY-ker Mondays with Togather’s help, please feel free to contact them directly to set up your event: dana@togather.com

Introducing Library #MAYkerMondays.

Posted on by pcsweeney

3D Printer
Recently a lot of libraries have been developing ideas and spaces around the maker movement and the maker culture. We have seen a giant leap in libraries as spaces for makers to make and for the Do It Yourself (DIY) community to come together and learn. Of course, libraries have always provided the knowledge for these kinds of things through our print and digital collections, but now we are seeing an emergence of libraries giving dedicated space, programming, and occasionally the tools to help our communities make it happen.

One of the big complaints that I’ve heard from librarians is that they don’t know anything about maker spaces or communities or programming. I have to say that this is almost entirely untrue. I am not at all involved in the maker movement or the community and I only just recently realized how many maker programs my library does. For example, how many of us do programs with our kids and teens making duct tape wallets? What about jewelry? How about almost any kind of craft project? These are all maker projects although we don’t think of them that way.

While maker programs like these are not about computers and technology, there are a lot of programs that you can do that are. Some examples of those things are Jason Griffey’s Library Box, renting or buying a 3D Printer, utilizing Arduino, and something as simple as taking electronic devices apart. There are tons of cheap and easy things that libraries can do to take part in the electronic/tech part of the maker movement.

In order to help us come up with some great resources for library maker programs, I created this google doc called the Maker Cookbook that you can contribute too if you have some maker ideas of your own or need something to help you come up with new ideas.

Another problem is that we need to come together around the Maker Movement and give it a good try. In order to move that conversation along and get people motivated and into the maker movement, we presented an idea at the ALA Midwinter Conference. This idea stemmed from the Library Lab (library Boing Boing) group and became #MAYkerMonday. We’d love to have more people participate! Read the details below and click this link to the FB page to let people know that your library will participate.

#MAYkerMonday will be held nationwide in libraries throughout May on every Monday. The idea is to encourage librarians to host a program for the maker community on every Monday in May. This is will be a way for libraries to show that they are participating in the maker movement and for librarians to try out some maker activities that they may not have tried before. It’s also a great way to introduce your staff to the make movement if they seem skeptical. By doing these programs, hosting a maker meetup, or maybe staff training around maker spaces for your staff each Monday in May and by using the hashtag #MAYkerMonday libraries can promote the idea that they are community spaces for creativity and learning. Sign up and join in the fun!

As part of this, we would also love for our blogging, Tumblr, Twitter, and other posting communities to use the #MAYkerMonday hashtag to promote the maker movement in libraries on every Monday in May.

This should be easy because for most libraries there are only three open Mondays in May. The fourth and the last #MAYkerMonday will be a great opportunity for librarians to use their day off to do their own maker project and join in the fun!

A Ridiculous but Entertaining Hacker Solution to the Porn Problem.

Posted on by pcsweeney

Eric Riley posted this article to the ALA Think Tank group on Facebook. And, if it works, it could be the solution to all of the library’s privacy on the computers problems. No longer requiring computer filters and all that BS. So I’m sure Sarah Houghton would love it. Basically, the solution works like this;

Remove the LCD’s frame, cutting out its polarized film with a utility knife before removing the screen’s film adhesive with a combination of cleaner and paint thinner and reassembling the monitor. Once complete, grab the glasses, cut out the lenses and combine them with the plastic film removed from the monitor before inserting them back into their frames.

After you do all this, you will be left with a computer screen that will look like a white screen to anyone not wearing the customized glasses. In essence our patrons will be able to have complete and total privacy if wanted.

That being said, of course it’s not a perfect solution for a number of reasons, but right off the top of my head I see these;

  • Anyone wearing the glasses anywhere in the library will be able to see what’s on the screen (kids included)
  • You’ll be stuck with a bunch of folks with sunglasses on indoors (which always looks douchie)
  • You’ll have to supply glasses that have been worn (hardly sanitary)
  • The glasses will get stolen (as does everything else)

    • But anyway, it’s a fairly outside the box and entertaining solution and I’m always down for some creative solutions to problems no matter how radical. I love the thought of it, but maybe not in practice.

    Here’s a video if you want to see it yourself