Author Archives: Janelle Hagen

The excitement and buzz around Maker Spaces is being compared to that of the early days of personal computers.  A Maker Space is defined as “collaborative workshops where young people gain practical hands-on experience with new technologies and innovative processes to design and build projects…a flexible environment where learning is made physical by applying science, technology, math, and creativity to solve problems and build things” (makerspace.org).

“The first step to being able to do something is to understand your own accomplishments,” MAKE Magazine founder Dale Dougherty recently said at this months’ American Library Association Mid-Winter conference in Seattle Washington.  He added, “We are not going to create a generation of kids who are interested in science and technology by having them read textbooks.”  Dougherty has been a driving force in encouraging libraries to redefine “tools” and expand their ideas of programming.   Making can include anything from creating homemade holiday cards to designing solutions for providing clean drinking water to rural areas.  The ability to prototype and physically design abstract ideas is not only something that is plausible, but also possible- due to technological innovations, crowdsourcing and access to inexpensive materials.

Innovation and creativity is in our blood, and there is something very human about the process of making.  Steve Jobs is quoted as saying, “everything around you that you call life was made up by people who were no smarter than you.”  This program would encourage this innovation and creativity among all students, faculty and staff.  It is an opportunity to allow students to create even if they are not enrolled in an art or computer science course.  It will allow for leadership opportunities and apprenticeships with existing programs and provide doorways to other disciplines.  The program will encourage networking, peer collaboration and community involvement.  By allowing students to use their creativity and imagination, we predict personal growth, invention, connected learning and entrepreneurship.

The Educational Enrichment Fund would allow for partnerships in the community with organizations like Metrix CreateSpace, Microsoft Garage, and the University of Washington Engineering and Information Schools.  Many resources exist to help Maker Spaces get off the ground, including Make Magazine, the American Library Association, and Makerspace.org.

The program would include DIY, crafts, instruction, hands on experience, art projects, wearables, bookmaking, and working with Arduino electronic prototyping technology.   It will also include: guest teachers, opportunities for student apprenticeships; procedures and demonstrations, collaboration with community members and hobbyists, networking, literacy, entrepreneurship, research and invention.

We are still in the “Beta” stage of developing our plan for “Taking on Making”.  However, we would like to start this March with a partnership at the Middle School where we will have several DIY workshops and gain an interest and following among students.  The next phase will be an on-going series called “Maker Mondays” (to replace Movie Mondays) and would be a weekly afterschool led program in the Upper School Think Tank.  Our ultimate goal is to work cross-departmently and create a permanent Maker Space for our students to work.

“Can you help me find a book?”

It’s that moment we’ve been trained for.  We’re ready for this. We have scoured the latest book lists, we read library journals, we make a point of reading as much as possible… we are librarians!  So why is this so hard to do?

Reader’s advisory causes the most anxiety for most librarians I know.  Reading is such a personal thing.  Recommending a television show or even music is one thing.  If you don’t like it, you change the channel… but books are a whole different animal.  One person’s favorite may not line up with another.  You may find a book that is absolutely fabulous but may challenge the values of the person you are recommending it for.  There are so many fine lines.

“Tell me about a book that you liked.”  This is the question Librarian extraordinaire Nancy Pearl suggests starting with.  Not, “What was the last thing you read?”, or “What authors do you like?”  These questions cause people to freeze up and feel like they are being tested, which is not the point.  Our job is to find a book that they are going to enjoy.  One that enriches their lives a little bit and one where they come back with a smile on their face, or at least a point of reference whether we were on the right track or not. It is a hard job but there are a lot of people who have created tools and resources to help us out.  Some of the tools I use regularly are:

GoodReads

Young Adult Library Association

NoveList (Accessed through SPL)

Library Thing

I have always made the arts a priority in my life, so I was really excited to find out that my role at Lakeside would include being the Librarian liaison to the art department.  As someone who studied Studio Art and Art History in high school and college,  I was surprised that Lakeside did not offer any art history courses.  However, after some investigating and speaking with our faculty, I learned that art history is heavily incorporated into the studio arts classes.

When I was approached by our painting and drawing teacher to help her find information and works by contemporary artists- I jumped at the challenge.  It turns out, she had a few “go-to” sites, but was confused about where to start.

Art databases are VERY expensive and while there’s a lot of really great ones out there, they are often designed for more higher level research.  We have many art books in our collection available to students, but they need to have an idea of what they are looking for.  When it came to searching on the Internet, we wanted to avoid art sites that wanted you go “buy posters” or that were watermarked.  The students would need high-quality digital images for reference from reputable sources.

For something like searching for visual images, browsing works best.   Marcia Bates’ Berry Picking Theory of Information Retrieval suggests that when looking for information, you collect bits and pieces along the way.  When looking for inspiration for artwork, this “cascade of interactions” benefits the user because they are able to take a more interactive approach to searching rather than searching using text and specific artists’ names.

I looked for resources that allowed students to easily search using keywords and also discover new works as they go.  A Google Image search was really helpful for this kind of searching.  We used different advanced search options (which I will show in more detail in a later post) but many of the pages we were sent to did not have high quality images, were watermarked, or the sites lacked authority.

Here is a list of the high quality resources I was able to find:

Google Art Project:  Explore collections from around the world with thousands of artworks photographed in extremely high resolution.

I couldn’t believe what an amazing resource was right under our noses.  Museums work in collaboration with Google to provide high-resolution works in this database.  You can search by collection, artists, discover “like-works” by using the artworks.  Users can also create “galleries” of images for ex: “Mathematics and Art”

Smart History: Smarthistory.org is a free, not-for-profit, multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook.

Search by time, style, artist, or themes.

Art 21:  Art in the 21st Century is a PBS series, educational resource, archive, and history of contemporary art. It premiered in 2001, and is now broadcast in over 50 countries worldwide.

In addition to the video content, this site contains bios, work, and interviews with contemporary artists.

Art Babble:  Art-Bab-ble [ahrt-bab-uhl] noun; verb (used without object) -bled, -bling 1. free flowing conversation, about art, for anyone. 2. a place where everyone is invited to join an open, ongoing discussion – no art degree required.

This site is great for checking out the process behind how art is made.  The videos included in this collection cover a wide array of different styles, cultures, and eras.

Kahn Academy- Art History:  Spontaneous conversations about works of art where the speakers are not afraid to disagree with each other or art history orthodoxy. Videos are made by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker along with other contributors and maintained at smarthistory.khanacademy.org.

Really neat collection from the Kahn Academy- great resource for teachers and students!

National Gallery of Art Classroom:  Online interactive lesson units for Teachers and Students.

Includes lesson plans, guided activities and lots of high quality bios and resources.

Picturing America: is an interactive gallery of artwork related to events, people, and themes in American history. You can browse the gallery chronologically or by theme. Click on any image in the gallery to learn about the artist and the artwork itself. Along with the background information for each image, Picturing America provides links to additional resources for learning about the artwork and artists.

MOOM The Museum of Online Museums:  is a list of museums that offer online exhibitions. In some cases the museums include virtual tours and in other cases the museums online exhibits are simple photo galleries.