Data, Video, Coding, Making: Libraries are Spaces to Create

Abstract

As the purveyors of literacy on campus, the library may be centrally poised to be the location where students will come for help with multimodal assignments; similarly, faculty members may turn to the library to assist with digital humanities or projects using data. Libraries are coming up with innovative ways to engage patrons in this dialog and impart technology skills to their users. Some are creating creative spaces, such as data visualization labs, digital humanities labs, makerspaces, media labs, and knowledge markets. Others are hiring a librarian or technical staff to consult with users. This talk will be an overview of some of these innovative spaces, as well as an introduction of services generally offered by libraries that build media and data literacy. The presenter will draw on the case studies from her book on the topic entitled, Development of Creative Spaces in Academic Libraries: A Decisionmaker’s Guide, published in 2018.