News

April 12, 2016

TASCHA has begun looking at innovation spaces that support making activities and how they may provide communities with unique opportunities through fostering innovation and creativity, but there are challenges that must be addressed before “every child a maker” becomes a reality. Through a five-part blog post series, “Making and the maker movement: A democratizing force or an example of cultural reproduction?,” TASCHA research partner Lauren Britton critically examines the discourse around the maker movement and makerspaces, not in an attempt to discredit the movement and its supporters, but rather to draw attention to the issues and challenges of the maker movement and how these may be addressed.

June 13, 2014

One of TASCHA’s recent research projects is focusing on innovation spaces (including makerspaces), and what the implications and opportunities are for libraries. We are working on crystallizing some aspects of this research and where we see it heading. We’re lucky to have maker movement maven Lauren Britton here with us in Seattle for a week to help us flesh out our ideas and contribute her expertise in the area. Lauren was one of (if not THE only) groundbreaking leaders of the makerspace movement within libraries. To maximize Lauren’s time with us, we invited our colleagues and students from the University of Washington to join us for an informal discussion on libraries and makerspaces. Lauren kicked off our discussion by providing a background on makerspaces, definining a makerspace for us, and shared her experience setting up a makerspace in the Fayetteville Public Library in central New York. We went on to discuss how libraries and makerspaces fit together compared to other places makerspaces exist, some of what she has learned over the past few years, and where things might be heading for makerspaces in libraries. Here’s a recap of our lively and informative discussion.