Design Needs and Solutions for Supporting Maker Programs in Rural Libraries

• In Event: Mapping the Terrain: Designing, Supporting, and Understanding Maker Educators in Rural Communities

Abstract

For multiple years, we have been involved in design-based research with multiple rural public libraries that host programs and activities for their local communities. Given growing interest in libraries becoming sites for making (Colgrove, 2013), we have invested a substantial amount of time in working to understand what is needed for rural libraries to provide maker experiences for youth. Our initial conjectures have been tested over time such that we have identified and developed some supports and resources that are available for rural libraries (Lee, Recker, & Phillips, 2018). For this presentation, we will be sharing a number of lessons learned that are embodied in our designed support materials. These lessons were inferred iteratively over time from documentation that includes field notes, interviews with library personnel, and photographic documentation of youth maker programs that we have helped design and implement in rural libraries.
A key support that we have developed was a set of program guides for activities that we have created and tested to help to implement maker programs in rural libraries (Rogowski, Recker, & Lee, 2019). These program guides are necessary for two reasons. One is that a number of library personnel lack formal experience with maker technologies and activities. They might have a background in information studies and traditional forms of librarianship but not in the design and implementation of youth programs. Given their rural location, few a robust image of what maker experiences would look like for their library. Because of that, it has been necessary for us to provide images of maker programs, both figuratively and literally. A common request as we tested materials was for more images so they could be reviewed quickly since rural librarians have a number of competing responsibilities and little time for planning.
Furthermore, we will discuss how the design of program guides incorporates a few other deliberate elements that were intended as educative supports (Davis & Krajcik, 2005). These include: 1. a proposed three-phase sequence for library maker programs that include “Learn” to signify some initial instruction for attending youth, “Make” to signify the time dedicated to youth physically designing and making specific projects, and “Share” being a mechanism for youth creations to be made public in some fashion; 2. A recurring marker of “Your Idea Here” in guide materials to communicate to the library staff member who is interested in hosting a program that the ideas provided in the program guide are examples but the staff member should feel empowered to come up with their own ideas; and 3. Deliberate instantiations of two types of programs: “Leave it on the table” and “Librarian-Facilitated Activity”. In rural libraries, there are two major genres of youth program that librarians favor: one where materials are left out for interested patrons to use and others where the librarian leads a class or session on their own. Our designs needed to be considerate of both, making versions of each an important component of our program guides.

Authors

• Victor R. Lee, Stanford University

• Mimi M. Recker, Utah State University

• Aubrey Rogowski, Utah State University