Pop-up Library Makerspace: academic libraries provide flexible, supportive space to explore emerging technologies.

The word Makerspace is a general term for a place where people get together to make things, create things and learn together. Antony Groves presents a look at a recent university library experiment hosting a pop-up makerspace. Working with local edtech leaders MakerClub and colleagues the library organised a two-hour workshop which offered the opportunity for students and staff to explore emerging technologies

Grassroots maker spaces:a recipe for innovation?

Makerspace has become an increasingly fashionable term that many community spaces use to label themselves. In this paper, we identify makerspace as an experience-led community space where people gather to make things together with the assistance of both digital and traditional making tools. This paper takes the inspiration from both Tuan’s definition of place and Lefebvre’s ‘triad spatial model’ and offers a unique analysis of what makerspace is in relation to makers’ experience. In addition, we would also like to discuss how these insights could inform future makerspace design

Grassroots digital fabrication in makerpaces. Report from a World Café

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Conflicted Commons: A Local Makerspace in the Neoliberal City

The commodification of culture, space, and resources is incentivized by neoliberal urbanism. In response, we have seen an attempt to develop collectively organized, oppositional spaces within urban places. The tensions that arise when considering the production of commons in the development of the neoliberal city are the central focus of this paper. As I will observe, these spaces are subjected to commodification as they become increasingly de-politicized through neoliberal ideologies. In order to theorize about these contradictory elements, I observe a makerspace in Richmond, Virginia called HackRVA. Specifically, I consider HackRVA as an urban commons. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, I consider how HackRVA engages with the neoliberal city of Richmond and how the organization and maintenance of their space and their community reflects commoning as social reproduction. I find that HackRVA’s relationship to the city is complicated as the community within the space both contests and assimilates to the creative economy

IUPUC Spatial Innovation Lab

During the summer of 2016 the IUPUC ME Division envi-sioned the concept of an “Imagineering Lab” based largely on academic makerspace concepts. Important sub-sections of the Imagineering Lab are its “Actualization Lab” (mecha-tronics, actuators, sensors, DAQ devices etc.) and a “Spatial Innovation Lab” (SIL) based on developing “dream stations” (computer work stations) equipped with exciting new tech-nology in intuitive 2D and 3D image creation and Virtual Reality (VR) technology. The objective of the SIL is to cre-ate a work flow converting intuitively created imagery to an-imation, engineering simulation and analysis and computer driven manufacturing interfaces. This paper discusses the challenges and methods being used to create a sustainable Spatial Innovation Lab

SciTech News Volume 70, No. 4 (2016)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 4 SLA Annual Meeting 2016 Report (S. Kirk Cabeen Travel Stipend Award recipient) 6 Reflections on SLA Annual Meeting (Diane K. Foster International Student Travel Award recipient) 8 SLA Annual Meeting Report (Bonnie Hilditch International Librarian Award recipient)10 Chemistry Division 12 Engineering Division 15 Reflections from the 2016 SLA Conference (SPIE Digital Library Student Travel Stipend recipient)15 Fundamentals of Knowledge Management and Knowledge Services (IEEE Continuing Education Stipend recipient) 17 Makerspaces in Libraries: The Big Table, the Art Studio or Something Else? (by Jeremy Cusker) 19 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 21 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 22 Advertisements IEEE 17 WeBuyBooks.net 2

Entrepreneurship resources in US public libraries: website analysis

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the entrepreneurship resources patrons can discover and/or access on the web pages of the largest 46 US public libraries to assess the strength of public libraries’ current support to their entrepreneur-patrons, and where, and by what means, public libraries may wish to expand, or further promote, their support. Design/methodology/approach – The author completed a website analysis of the largest 46 US public libraries, as defined by the criteria in the ALA publication The Nation’s Largest Public Libraries. Website analysis was completed via a standardized checklist assessment of each library website. Findings – Public libraries often have print and electronic resources, meeting spaces and programming that could be of use to entrepreneur-patrons, but these resources are sometimes difficult to discover on library websites. Libraries have strong partnering relationships with other government and nonprofit organizations, but they may wish to expand these partnerships further. Practical implications – Public libraries in the US often have multiple support services to offer entrepreneur-patrons. However, if libraries would like to reach entrepreneur-patrons beyond their walls, as well as within them, they may wish to consider further refining the resources both accessible via their website and promoted on it. Originality/value – While there are research articles exploring how both academic and public libraries support entrepreneur-patrons, as yet, there has been no in-depth research into how public libraries support their entrepreneur-patrons through not only their in-library offerings but also the materials highlighted and/ or available via their website. This research addresses this gap in the literature.Publisher does not allow open access until after publicatio

RE:FORM - Reimagining Education for the Future Of Redistributed Manufacturing

Manufacturing supply chains are being reshaped and redistributed by the Internet. Designers in Delhi are working with makers in Manchester, transporting bits over networks rather than boxes by container ship. We are moving to a world where software files rather than physical products are posted, with makers local to consumers fabricating products designed and developed globally. How do we educate future makers and designers for this new industrial reality of networked prototyping and manufacturing? The Open University (OU) and MAKLab have been exploring this challenge as part of the Royal College of Art’s Future Makespaces in Redistributed Manufacturing project. The OU is a distance learning institution. Providing hands-on making experience for our design students is difficult as we cannot assume our students have access to any equipment or materials, yet we recognise the importance of materiality in a design education: not just understanding the theories, but also how materials and tools perform. MAKLab specialise in providing individualised training pathways in design and digital fabrication, but are interested in exploring how to scale up that individualised educational model in partnership with educational institutions. Partnering allowed us to explore what benefits learners might gain from being involved in an online collaborative design and making process, from sketches to software models through to full scale prototypes: not only learning technical expertise but also the soft skills of negotiation, collaboration, and project management. As educators we were interested to find out how universities and makerspaces might work together to set learners a challenge that more closely resembled what they might experience in their professional lives. To address these questions, our project was underpinned by a number of research workshops and interviews to establish the context and potential challenges to be addressed, but we were agreed that our project wouldn’t stop at the theoretical stage. We would test our ideas by running a live study with participants, aiming at real measurable outcomes