I read this post by my friend and inspiration Justin Hoenke. I know that Justin doesn’t like to be an inspiration in that way, but he is awesome, and I have learned so much from his projects and the way he is an awesome human being. So Justin, please forgive me for respectfully disagreeing with some parts of your latest blog post and for admiring you.
I know that you will like that we are having a conversation 🙂
First, there is a lot of stuff in Justin’s post that I agree with as well. I agree that the library magic is in the meaningful conversations we are facilitating and having with our communities. Having shiny new stuff should never be the focus but by having this new technology we provide access and help people learn about new technology and thereby we are making a valuable democratic difference in our communities. This is amplified if we can have the conversations with our communities about how the technology can have a positive impact on the community.
My favorite 3D printing example so far is a project Copenhagen Libraries did with the theme “space”. School kids were going to 3D print a planet. Some chose colourful planets with lots of craters from a well-known big website for sharing print files. Others chose planets from NASA’s website.
This generated wonderful conversations about space, science and information literacy because just as in a normal search it is valuable to be critical of the sources from where you get your results. The planets from NASAs homepage was more accurate to what we know about the planets. This was a great learning experience for the kids and a great way to have conversations about space.
I am totally stealing that project, because I think it will be valuable to my community, and I am proud to be inspired by Copenhagen Libraries.
I think libraries should be inspired by each other and steal each others projects world-wide. That is what I call global librarianship.
An important point in global librarianship is that you can’t directly steal a project. You have to translate it in a way that fits your own community, and not all cool projects can do just that.
I also agree with Justin that we should be inspired by stuff from outside the library field, and as I am writing this I am listening to Tusk by Fleetwod Mac that Justin recommended. What a great song!
By the way. One of my favourite library programs is still Justin’s Hip Hop workshop program from back in the days, where teens made their own music. We could do something similar at my library but definitely not a complete copy, because the community is very different.
I hope you will forgive me for keep on looking up to other librarians like you, Justin. I have to! You inspire me. Thank you.
Jan Holmquist 