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Are Maker Spaces the Future of Public Libraries?
misterbarnacles writes "Shareable has an interview with librarian Lauren Britton Smedley from the Fayetteville Free Library, which is adding a Fab Lab to its community offerings. She said, 'I think that libraries are really centers for knowledge exchange, and a Fab Lab fits perfectly into something like that. This idea that libraries are a place where the books live, and you go to find a book, and that’s all it is, I think is really starting to shift. Libraries are a place for social transformation. They’re a place that you can go to get computer access, or access to technology that you can’t get anywhere else, and access to people. ... At the Fab Lab, the impetus behind the whole thing was to create a center for knowledge exchange where we’re not just offering Intro to Word or Intro to Excel — that we can offer Intro to Computer Programming, or Digital Fabrication — these skills that are really important in the STEM fields, and we can push that information out for free. And how do we do that? By getting people in the community who know that stuff to come in and share what they know.'"
I'm not religious at all, I don't buy into it, however the positive side of religion is as a community center, a gathering places for people to come together and in that sense I support the idea.
However I have often thought that libraries could be (and are) the same thing on a higher level, a community center laced with science, knowledge and education, (and fiction too) access for all and a saner, kinder place to gather.
A church of the geek/nerd as it were.
I have many fond memories of my local library, and anything that keeps them around is welcome, there should always be some place for us "non-believers" to gather.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
My local library is struggling for funds. Buying dead trees with ideas printed on them is out of the question - the budget is so restricted that library hours are being cut back constantly. I love my library and I support it every that I can - aside from volunteering because my state Georgia is run by ignorant, moronic, stupid, asinine, fucked up,
You see, if I want to volunteer at my county library I have to state that I have never wanted to over-throw the US government because my idiotic, moronic, dipshit, redneck, ignorant, asshole, stupid, legislature says that I need to fill out this form (Sedition and Subversive Activities Questionnaire)!
I'd like to say, that we in the State of Georgia in the US of A (not to be confused with Georgia the country - for my ignorant fellow Americans) are stupid, ignorant, Bible thumping morons!
See, I can't fill it out and say "No" because I want to control the World and my first action as Emperor of the World is to condemn every Goddamn Georgia (US) legislator who voted for that bill to hard labor - actually any labor considering that they're all pampered assholes - and education outside of their moronic World view.
Goddamn it! I Really Hate the South sometimes!!
I'll say it's not about the books. My local library has 54 SF books, and not an Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, or Bova in the bunch.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!