Don’t clean up all the time. Creativity and new ideas come from chaos and a little mess.
»Do it yourself« is important, but »Do it together« even more so. It is in the community and its network, that you create and share your ideas.
Put yourself in the game. Lead by example and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Use your own personal skills and creativity.
The Clout of the makermovement is defined by its community.
Focus on learning as something you do with your hands; skills are created by making, touching and participating.
Remember: You don’t need a makerspace to work with makerculture.
You create with your community not for it. Get citizens involved from the beginning, ownership is a continuant process; don’t reduce your community to just being guests.
Create opportunities for engagement on diverse levels, people commit themselves in different ways.
Define and stage your activities and initiatives so citizens easily can see what’s going on. But be willing to change and expand so ideas aren’t limited.
Have different thresholds for your activities; make some for novices, and some for experts. Staff over stuff. People are more important than technology and machines.
Contributes to activities that provide public value by stimulating the development of network, skills and innovation − Networking creates ideas, knowledge and growth for the individual. − Mutual learning from, and with, local experts increases the overall level of knowledge in the community. − Access to new opportunities, new technologies, and new ways of using, what we already know is the basis for innovation.
Increases the social value of libraries, as public spaces that bridge between different communities and knowledge domains − Media, space and people make the library a diverse institution that stimulates and inspires. − Making new connections and networking are the basis for personal and social growth. − Making is closely connected to creativity, and skills are developed by doing, touching and participating.
Contributes to the libraries’ relationship with its local community − The library is a resourceful, flexible partner that gains strength by giving control of library activities to citizens. − The library becomes a local driver for cooperation and civic engagement. − The Library becomes an amplifier for ressources and network already existing in the local community.
Design af malenehald.dk
People’s Lab During the project six different Innovationspaces, also called people’s labs, have been created. The labs have been created locally, respectively in Aarhus and Roskilde, and on the basis of local needs. Creating together with the local community has been central to the project. It has resulted in six innovation spaces, all of them temporary: TechLab, Wastelab, GuitarLab, Maker Space in Dream City at Roskilde Festival 2013, Magnetic Groove Memories and Aarhus Mini Maker Faire. Read more about the different labs at www.folkelab.dk.
People’s Labs in Libraries If the growth of welfare is to continue, innovation from citizens and communities is demanded. People’s Lab has for the last two years been experimenting with initiatives that will support the new requirements and skills on demand: critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, innovation, communication and collaboration. Making or the makermovement seems to be a trend or approach to learning that encourages this. Lessons learned from our project are passed on here as inspiration for working with making in libraries.
Organisation The project is created in collaboration between the Main Library Aarhus, Roskilde Libraries, University of Aarhus and Roskilde University, Open Space Aarhus and INSP! The project is supported by the Danish Agency for Culture’s Development Pool for Public and School Libraries.
Challenges libraries strategic and managerial capacity for innovation
Read more about the project at www.folkelab.dk.
− It requires innovative leadership to support innovation. − It requires leadership to choose a direction. − The role of staff changes from performing services to actively engaging citizens.
folkelab
folkelab