So this has been something that I’ve been kicking around for a few months but I have finally gotten the chance to put some ideas down on (digital) paper.
I’ve always been interested in the DIY movement, in the Maker movement, in different aspects of programming and digital life. To this end, I have actually gotten together with a friend and we are working on a project encouraging librarians to take part in these movements. It’s all very exciting right now and nebulous but I think once we get our thoughts straightened out, it’ll be a great project.
I don’t know exactly how many librarians would be into this idea, but it really couldn’t hurt to put it out there. I think there should be enough to start it off and then, with proper marketing and advertisement at conferences and social media, we will be able to get a good amount of people interested in the idea of DIY and Maker Faire-type events for Librarians.
Here are some things that I am currently working on/enjoy DIYing/having fun with:
- Learning Processing – I want to do an interactive art project regarding space in a gallery
- Learning Ruby on Rails – working on a few websites for myself and for friends. Working on creating an Assignment Calculator for work – students can use it to determine how much time they have, what steps they need to take, what resources are available to them
- Learning how to bookbind – I’ve always wanted to do this and it seems SOOOOO fun
- Knitting – I’m so behind on my projects, it’s embarrassing
So keep an eye out for an announcement regarding the beginning of this project. We are still hammering out minor details (such as the name of the project) but hopefully we can launch it by Internet Librarian 2011 – seems like a great place to launch a program like this.