It's Academic

I recently began my own foray into a 3D printing program in my library, and to get beyond my hesitancy and dig in I sought inspiration at the Tri-State College Library Cooperative’s Spring Program, “The Maker Movement & You: Creating, Collaborating, and Crafting in your Library” which served as a fantastic forum to see what librarians and information professionals are doing under the large umbrella of “making”. Presentations from both sides of the academic/public library arena highlighted some of the large and small projects being supported through a little bit of money and a lot of creative energy from our peers.
As you may have guessed, the projects and initiatives showcased were designed for a very particular user base with differing interests in Making…from hobbyists to engineers…but what surprised me most was a common thread of best practices that ran through these disparate users and programs. Here are my (uber simple) takeaways:

• Failure isn’t an option…it’s a certainty – Failure is a critical part of any ‘making’. Don’t put undue pressure on your makers to get it right the first time, or on yourself to show them how to get it right the first time. The beauty and joy of making is in the process…learn to explore and enjoy it.
• 3D printing??? Who needs it?!?! – Yes, 3D printers are sexy right now. Anyone who has used one can tell you that, while we’re still on the ground floor of how this technology will change our daily living, we are a long way off from “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot!” The good news is that being a Maker Space doesn’t mean you need thousands of dollars in tech. Combining tried and true craft fodder such as clay, foam, glue, or stencils with dynamic free apps already on your phone or iPad and a bit of social media savvy can take you from zero to maker-space in a flash. Imagination > budget constraints.
• Use the resources you already have – Whether it be an app on your smartphone or the closet full of leftover crafting supplies from last year’s program—use it. Again, it’s the process not the product we care about. If the energy is there then the medium becomes less important. Is it cooler if the play dough sculpture gets filmed as a stop-motion animation video with a user-created soundtrack? Yes. But it was a great idea when it was just the play dough. Create for creation’s sake and you won’t regret it.

• Sit on your hands – Tied closely to the “fail” point above, a key to the process of designing a useful and engaging space is letting those you’ve brought in explore. Let them make odd choices…unusual approaches…something you know will not work…the entire point is the process. It’s the process that will drive success, not the produc

For anyone interested in the program or reaching out to the presenters who shed so much light on my own processes, I would encourage a visit to http://tclclibs.org/.

At the end of March, I was able to attend the ACRL Conference (Association of College and Research Libraries) in Portland, Oregon, where some of the sessions I attended were focused on health and wellness for students, staff, and faculty in academic libraries. Over the past two years, my library has been involved in a campus-wide campaign focusing on health and wellness. Therefore, with our library participating in many of these wellness movements (heh), I attended a few ACRL sessions focused on these topics applied to the academic library.

During these sessions, presenters and participants shared ideas for stress reduction and study breaks for students. At our library, we have a program called Take a Break. Every night at 9:00 p.m. during the week before finals and the week of finals, the library provides a snack break sponsored by a different campus department, group, club, and/or by individuals. We send out campus-wide announcements requesting sponsorship a few weeks before finals, and students are appreciative of the donations of food and drinks each night. Students take a few minutes to stand up from their work, walk around the library, grab some snacks and beverages, and socialize while they refuel. We also ask participants to sign a thank-you note each evening for the sponsor(s), and both students and sponsors seem happy to participate.

In addition to Take a Break, we recently added exercise balls (also called stability balls), yoga mats, and yoga blocks to our circulating collection. Students use the exercise balls as substitutes for chairs throughout the library, and the yoga mats and blocks can be checked out for use with our student Yoga Club, which takes place in a room in the library once a week. Our students work with a local yoga studio to have certified teachers come to campus to conduct classes at a lower cost than the studio prices. Our administration has also added yoga classes for faculty and staff, and the instructor for those sessions has led the library staff in guided meditation and mindfulness exercises before staff training sessions, which is a wonderful way to set a positive and focused tone for meetings.

As another part of the wellness initiative, the library has developed a great collection of books, DVDs, kits, and other materials featuring nutrition information and exercise programs, which are popular with our whole university community: http://library.misericordia.edu/mu_library/pdf/wellnesscollectionlibrary.pdf. Our administrative assistant, Sue Lazur, created a display in January 2015 featuring these materials:

I feel like this new focus on health and wellness in the library and on campus in general is helping our students, faculty, and staff feel more comfortable with these topics in an academic setting. Sometimes I think that putting 100% of our focus on academics puts our health and physical/mental well-being on a back burner, but there are ways to integrate those into our academic lives, such as using an exercise ball as a chair while studying or working to challenge and strengthen balance and physical awareness. What do you think of ideas like these? Is your library engaging in any health- or wellness-focused programming, collection development, or resource-sharing?

Author’s Note: I was not responsible for all of the projects described herein, so if you have questions about anything we’ve done, please feel free to comment, and I can get you in touch with the person behind the project!