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Libraries are repositioning themselves as cultural and learning centers for the digital age. Many lend out mobile hotspots, often for weeks at a time. Others offer classes in the latest tech, such as 3D printing and music-editing software. And libraries have some of the savviest social media editors around.
On Sunday, libraries across the country began celebrating their evolving mission during National Library Week. Melinda Gates serves as honorary chairwoman of the annual event, which is sponsored by the American Library Association. Gates is an appropriate choice: She and husband Bill began funding computers, internet access and software for libraries in low-income communities through an organization they established in 1997.
Do libraries have a future as makerspaces?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:22PM
Librarians are cool people, who can answer almost any question, or at least point you in the direction of the answers you need. That's how I found 42.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:24PM
Yes, Makerspaces can be part of a libraries' mission.
http://www.ala.org/pla/resources/tools/technology-website-development/makerspaces-technologies [ala.org]
No, a Makerspace != a Library. A Makerspace is about teaching and/or providing access to one kind of thing. Not about teaching / learning, English/Japanese/German/etc, Social history, or various other areas of knowledge.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Alfred on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:34PM (1 child)
Hoopla is B movie heaven
Freegal is all the hits, er, some of the hits from a decades past. (and a whole lot of crappy karaoke knock offs)
Technology is gonna make the library fucking lit, yo. /sarc
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:49PM
As long as there are desktop computers at the library, people will go there. They can get the new music on YouTube, and the A movies on $PIRATE_STREAMING_SITE, if it's not blocked by the porn filter.
One thing I visited a library for recently was to use high-end, large-format scanning equipment.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:52PM (2 children)
I like reading books and have been to plenty of libraries. I like to make things but have never been to a makerspace, though I've seen one from a distance. There are too many dudes there with tight pants or strange beards or who are into craft beer. If people are really into making something and good at it, they will start a company to make it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:10PM (1 child)
Makerspaces can give you relatively cheap access to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. Not everyone needs their own high-end 3D printer, laser or water cutter, etc., but they might like to use one once in a while.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:01PM
That's me. The library provided the means for me to finally give 3D printing a try, when they got a 3D printer last summer. Been wanting to try 3D printing for years, but I couldn't justify springing for a printer of my own. I don't need to 3D print that often, only a few times a year. And I'd need somewhere to put it. The library solved those issues for me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:40PM (1 child)
A library is a collection of information. Having 3d printers may be useful but why don't libraries then have tools (saws, wrenches, sockets, hammers, bandsaws) to lend out?
I'd rather see my library use its resources to expand the information I can access and leave the specialist hardware equipment to other places ... like makerspaces or colleges.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:00PM
Actually, I have seen libraries that lent out small kits. I think they were more oriented towards kids, but there may have been kits with small tools in them.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:44PM (6 children)
The local well-to-do suburb library has gone down the makerspace path, while the university library has removed like 80% of its books into a warehouse, and added cafe facilities so that people can gab, slurp coffee and eat snacks while maybe looking at one of the remaining books.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:55PM (3 children)
This is quite true and I personally hate that development. I want books in my library, I don't want movies and music and god knows what else. I'm fine with them offering public access to the internet and such but the core function should be books. But then I guess they have taken it upon themselves, or being ordered by the local politicians/council to become more of a culture center then a knowledge center -- ok the knowledge part might be a bit over the top to since most reading doesn't appear to be knowledge related but for entertainment and relaxation at least so at the public library compared to the university library. But the Uni library has not devoted massive amount spaces to "group and study rooms" and naturally they have a gargantuan coffee and relaxation corner (cause reading is so hard?).
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:37PM
Yes, this is progress as it now takes making the library a comfortable place for people to want to spend time there. I am fine with there being movies and music available as those are forms of information, of a sort, as well. I have gotten used to online searchable databases of information instead of paper magazines and journals, although I wish the magazines were browseable. (This is one of the reasons you can pay publishing houses a lot for journal subscriptions - your library picks up the tab and the cost is borne by the tax base.)
But things aren't the way I really like them because what I want is the past.
Still doesn't mean I think the library should invest in non-media things like 3d printers. Now some books or videos on how to create my own 3d printer is different. :)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:40PM (1 child)
You moron, important stuff is on the Internet now not in books. Books are obsolete as soon as they are printed. You want to know if Kanye and Beyonce are still together? You have to look on the Internet.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:41PM
Who? Is that your brother in-law or something?
Why would I care?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:11PM (1 child)
Let me guess... millennial librarians?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:45PM
Nah. There's no money in that. They're all doing Porn [xvideos.com]. [NSFW]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:31PM (1 child)
that everything can be MIM'd in real time.
I have a stack of old technical books that are a pain the ass to move around. The used to be cheap, but if you've paid attention used pulp books have massively increased in price over the past decade. I'm not talking about fiction, I'm talking about quality engineering and science books. I hate moving my pulp stack when I move, and I would donate to the library. But I've done that before and they sell my rare titles and use the money to buy stacks of bodice rippers.
Digital repo's can't be trusted. And many old titles are still superior to the 300$/copy annually updated shitware coming out of academia. The role of libraries has gotten more important during the digital age, not less. More important because they provide a hard copy means of validating digital copies that can't be trusted. Not because the author wasn't trustable, but because the distribution channel can't be trusted.
It would be nice if libraries clued into that fact and started focusing on the quality of the collections rather than trying to be entertainment centers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:50PM
what you are looking for is an archive.
a public library was never a place to find archival material, because they flip inventory based on readership
--
oh.. good luck finding a easily accessible public archive
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Wednesday April 10 2019, @12:48AM (2 children)
First and most of all, libraries need legal help with what they always do - provide books on loan. Currently publishers charge libraries up to 10 times more for eBooks than retail. This has to stop; now. https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/e-book-prices-marked-up-too-high-libraries-protest-1.3123465 [www.cbc.ca]
Same goes for all other types of information such as movies, audio, articles, and whatever might come to exist in the future. Meantime, until such a law comes to be, we should pirate all of it and never ever pay publishers at all, period.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:19AM (1 child)
> never ever pay publishers at all, period.
Gee, why not tell us how you really feel? How about paying authors, do they deserve anything for educating or entertaining you?
Let me guess, you are also against any sort of program that would support artists that aren't popular yet, like universal basic income.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday April 12 2019, @03:18AM
Bro, do it old fashioned way. Get yourself a steady job and income, and only then start doing art, science or whatever you are genius at. Than I might check you out.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @05:06AM (1 child)
All I got was baffled looks.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:50PM
I work in a library.
https://librivox.org/ [librivox.org] - Librivox - Public Domain Audio Books
http://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org] - Gutenberg - Public Domain E-Books
https://www.hathitrust.org/ [hathitrust.org] - HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
http://en.childrenslibrary.org/ [childrenslibrary.org] - International Children's Digital Library
https://books.google.com/ [google.com] - Google Books
https://archive.org/index.php [archive.org] - Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
https://openlibrary.org/ [openlibrary.org] - Open Library is an initiative of the Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"