Welcome to Adventures in Language

The best place online to elevate your knowledge of linguistics and proficiency at language learning and teaching.

AIL-Badge-General

Read, Watch, Listen...

Language content in the format you prefer

Subscribe to receive emails

Benefits of Makerspaces in Small Communities

board-409582_1920

Similar to your neighborhood tapas restaurant, the makerspace provides your library patrons with a smorgasbord of bite-sized bits of knowledge. Makerspaces allow your patrons to experience the technological products and services they may otherwise not have access to—and gives them a place to let their imagination and creativity run wild. Here are a few benefits of offering a makerspace in your library.

Exposure to New Opportunities

One key benefit of investing in a makerspace is the ability to try a selection of varied arts and technologies from around the world. Similar to ordering five to twenty different plates of tapas, your makerspace will give your library the opportunity to provide your patrons with small “tastes” of knowledge from a variety of different sectors.

Have rumors of patrons interested in robotics sparked ideas of bringing some basic engineering opportunities into your library’s makerspace? Unfortunately, your copy of Robot Building for Dummies may not quite cover it. Reach out to universities and build a relationship with experts in the fields you're interested in exploring in your makerspace. Many university professors will be more than eager to loan textbooks or old materials, connect you with places to buy resources or they may even volunteer their time to teach a class at your library. Who knows? You may soon find yourself face-to-face with a modern-day George Devol, creator of the first industrial robot.

Fosters Creativity in your Community

Tapas are meant for sharing, and your makerspace is no different. Once you have established what equipment and materials your makerspace will have, reach out to your community so they can get a piece of the pie (or, to stick with our theme tortilla de patatas)! There are many benefits linked to the makerspace, including extensive opportunities for your younger patrons to get involved. According to our friends at Edweek, children experience significant benefits by being exposed to the skills they can develop in the makerspace like “problem identification [and] refinement of creative ideas.”

Invite your local schools, daycares and other members in your community to an open house to experience the makerspace. One of the greatest benefits of the makerspace is that there’s no age requirement which allows a number of different community members to get involved. By offering classes to children and adults alike, your members will have the opportunity to be exposed to new technologies normally only available at larger libraries and academic institutions.

The makerspace is truly the one entree that keeps on giving for your library. If you’re looking for some inspiration to modernize your library, take a look what Library 21c is doing in our case study: What a Modern Library Looks Like Today.

Download Here

How to Help International Students Integrate on Campus
Interview with a Polyglot: Richard Simcott
Lindsay Mullen
Written by Lindsay Mullen

Lindsay Mullen is CEO of Prosper Strategies, working behind the scenes to support the Mango team's world of lovable language learning. A language aficionado herself, Lindsay oversees a team of marketers fluent in public relations, content development and strategy (and they speak some German, French, Spanish and Chinese as well.)

Related Posts
Inside Tips on Promoting Mango
Inside Tips on Promoting Mango
Meet the recipient of the 2016 Mango Languages / NMRT Professional Development Grant.
Meet the recipient of the 2016 Mango Languages / NMRT Professional Development Grant.
ALA Annual 2018: The DIY Library and the Share-Culture of Librarianship
ALA Annual 2018: The DIY Library and the Share-Culture of Librarianship
Become a pirate for our #LibraryLubber video contest and win an iPad Pro!
Become a pirate for our #LibraryLubber video contest and win an iPad Pro!
Are you a polling place? Preparing your library for elections.
Are you a polling place? Preparing your library for elections.
Partnering with Local Businesses and Organizations to Make Your Small Library the Center of Your Community
Partnering with Local Businesses and Organizations to Make Your Small Library the Center of Your Community

Comments

Subscribe

Subscribe to Email Updates
https://blog.mangolanguages.com/benefits-of-makerspaces-in-small-communities
blog.mangolanguages.com
CC-MAIN-2023-06
124879
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:67RNRXVK4JJZ2FW5VZTUCRCNJHPVOVA7
<urn:uuid:9c3c589b-4237-4146-989a-ae364ba81355>
2023-02-09T11:34:46Z
199.60.103.228
text/html
sha1:Y3QJGFBLPE6W2JPRKIELVBLJJOUR3R7W
<urn:uuid:3c49e280-807b-40f3-b29f-712eb0dfa02b>
https://blog.mangolanguages.com/benefits-of-makerspaces-in-small-communities
response
<urn:uuid:79067322-32b8-42b0-8672-7f9249f6a991>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2023-06
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for January/February 2023
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-197
software: Apache Nutch 1.19 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.4-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/