This past weekend, Making in Michigan Libraries took to Benzonia for a fantastic winter extravaganza! We spent a wonderful weekend helping out at Benzonia’s annual Holiday Party joined by Tori Culler and Caroline Wack from our Michigan Makers project.
Benzonia has a lovely tradition of hosting a holiday party to celebrate the approaching holiday season. The event started with baked goods, punch, and a puppet show hosted, as always, by Dr. Fizz and Boomer the Rat. The puppets asked the audience about their holiday traditions and sang Christmas carols. In case you missed it, Boomer likes all things cheese during the holidays.
After the puppet show came a fantastic balloon animal making event with Neil Sauter, the Michigan Stilt Walker!
Neil made reindeer balloon animals and other festive creations. He also taught the kids how to shape the balloons as well — all from his high-altitude position. He even made balloon creations upon request during the final hour of the event.
The final hour was a whirlwind … kids could get a custom balloon creation from Neil, get their photo taken with an elf straight from the Detroit Parade Company, and let their creativity fly. BPL’s Repurposeful Librarians organized an ornament and craft workshop on one side of the room, and we hosted a gift making and wrapping workshop, bringing back some favorite materials (like making your own LED-illuminated holiday card and using paint pens to create a one-of-a-kind glass votive holder) and adding some new ones (like decorating chalkboard frames for loved ones).
Make your own LED light up Christmas cards with Tori!Decorating chalkboard frames and plaques in front; glass decorating with paint markers in backChalkboard frame decoratingTwin artists showing off their work
After everyone was done decorating and crafting they wrapped their gifts at the gift wrapping station with Caroline so they could give it to someone they care for later.
When we weren’t creating things, we enjoyed admiring Beulah’s decorated holiday windows, doing a little holiday shopping from local artists, and cheering on the holiday parade. It was a wonderful and creative weekend.
On October 18th, Kristin Fontichiaro and Benzonia Library staff members met with Senator Darwin Booher to talk about MML’s relationship with rural libraries through the University of Michigan School of Information. Mark Rivett created a news event on the University of Michigan’s Government Relations page, which can be found here!
The news event with wonderful videos can be found below.
Maker Movement: Researching Making in Michigan Libraries
Libraries Engage: Benzonia Public Library
Front Row Left to Right: Kristin Fontichiaro, Clinical Associate Professor UM School of Information; Michelle Leines, Assistant Library Director Benzonia Library; Senator Darwin Booher Back Row: Jimmy McLaren, MAKER Coordinator
Over the years, MML had the pleasure of working with 13 wonderful libraries! From Peter White Public Library in the UP to Niles District Library in the Southwest MML has been partnering with libraries all over Michigan!
MML Library Sites
Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library
Ann Arbor District Library
Benton Harbor Public Library
Benzonia Public Library
Coopersville Area District Library
Frankenmuth James E. Wickson District Library
Houghton Lake Public Library
Niles District Library
Nottawa Township Library
Peter White Public Library
Pickford Community Library
Saginaw District Library
West Iron District Library
We’re honored to have been able to work with and continue to work with so many wonderful libraries across Michigan. Thank you, to our 13 fabulous libraries!
School Library Journal (SLJ) wrote an article about MML’s resourceful low expense projects and events! This article was published in November 2017, but is just as relevant today. To view the article on SLJ’s site check it out here!
Cheap Thrills: Maker Projects that Won’t Break Your Budget
Clockwise from top left: Through a Michigan Makers partnership, coordinated by Kristin Fontichiaro, an elementary student repurposes junk materials to make something new; building a cardboard ATM machine at the Stewart Middle Magnet School in Tampa, FL; a cardboard city at a Redwood City (CA) Library Foundation event. Photos courtesy of (clockwise from top left): Michigan Makers of the University of Michigan School of Information; Diana Rendina; Robert Pronovost
High-tech projects involving 3-D printers, laser cutters, and fancy video equipment are usually an easy draw for students, but ideas that involve cardboard, straws, and T-shirts can also deliver a big burst of STEAM without breaking the bank. We asked librarians and other experts around the country to share the most popular low-cost making projects they’ve seen or done. Here are some to try this year.
GRAB SOME STRAWS
Photo by Strawbees
Straws lend themselves to lightweight building and are surprisingly resilient Strawbees, which are stronger and more flexible than regular straws, are designed for inexpensive prototyping activities; a pack of 200 colorful Strawbees costs $10. “I have seen students build catapult projects, engineering projects, and weight-bearing projects,” says Heather Moorefield-Lang, associate professor at the School of Library Information Science at the University of South Carolina. “Afterward, you just break them apart and start something new. They just keep giving.” Strawbee connectors are available in a kit for $20; students can also scan and print more on a 3-D printer, suggests Moorefield-Lang. If your library is equipped with a die-cutter, you can create your own connectors from old plastic containers (#2 and #4 plastics work best).
THROW A NO-SEW COSTUME PARTY
Adult-size, secondhand T-shirts can turn into all sorts of togs with a pair of scissors. “Kids can wriggle through the neck holes of an adult shirt and, using the ribbing as a waistband, create a T-skirt,” says Kristin Fontichiaro, clinical associate professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. She suggests cutting off the hem of a second shirt to make belts or braiding the strips to use as a hairpiece. Turn T-shirts into knights’ tabards by cutting a line straight down the shirt from the shoulder to the bottom, or create capes by cutting off the shirt front from the shoulder seams, leaving the ribbing intact. Discarded sleeves can become knit caps. Then kids can dress up in all these new garments to enact scenes from their favorite books. Fontichiaro recommends the activity for third graders on up; students need to be able to manipulate fabric scissors.
ROBOT ON THE MARCH
To publicize a Cardboard Challenge event at the Benzonia (MI) Public Library, this cardboard robot and puppet “marched” in a local parade, with information about the challenge—open to kids and adults interested in inventing, building, and crafting with cardboard—on its back. The robot was created by Jimmy McLaren, who is married to library director Amanda McLaren.Photo courtesy of Benzonia Public Library
CREATE A CARDBOARD CHALLENGE
When then nine-year-old Caine Monroy built an arcade entirely of cardboard, he launched a movement and a website. Students can join this year’s global challenge—or be more open-ended and design their projects. To start, you’ll need to provide cardboard, glue guns or duct tape, paint or markers, and some cardboard-cutters. Robert Pronovost, a maker space consultant and founder of EmpowerMINT, dedicated to empowering students through making and innovation, likes to have students work with Makedo’s kid-friendly saws, which are included in a toolkit ($12.95 each, make.do). Diana Rendina, media specialist at Tampa (FL) Preparatory School, also recommends a battery-operated cutter from Skil (about $40 on Amazon.com).
Pronovost gets kids’ creative juices flowing by giving them stacks of cardboard, tape, butcher paper, and tools to build a cardboard city. Librarians can start by constructing one building, with or without student help, and have them work alone or in groups to add on. Spurring them on with questions leads to planning and innovation: Does this city need an airport? Would hotels be useful? What about a reservoir or city hall? The beauty of this project is that students of all ages, even preschoolers, can join in.
Heather Lister, a consultant for Mackin Educational Resources and a former teacher librarian, put a new spin on the cardboard challenge by giving her students the chance to create a plaything for her then two-year-old son. They asked him questions about his likes and dislikes and then crafted toys, including a marble run. The only parameter: every part of their creation had to be DIY. “What I really like about this project is that it not only focused on the invention and design process, but involved research and knowing your audience,” Lister says. She also liked that kids were creating for someone other than themselves, fostering empathy, and suggests that students could design for one another or for kids in other classes.
Michigan Makers participants sort through recycled materials to create gifts. Photos courtesy of Michigan Makers of the University of Michigan School of Information
OPEN UP THE JUNK BOX
Free building material is all around, if you just look: It’s not too difficult to collect empty cereal or cracker boxes, toilet paper tubes, yogurt containers, broken toys, and more. Then add scissors, tape, glue, and a stapler to your stash. “Students can create the slowest marble maze or board games, prototype the next holiday must-have toy, or invent their own creations,” says Fontichiaro. Best of all, preschoolers on up will be able to make something—and tap into their problem-solving and design skills.
MAKE SQUISHY CIRCUITS
Play-Doh plus LED lights, a nine-volt battery, some wires (repurposed from old tech), and alligator clips can give kids the chance to fashion light-’em-up creations—including flags, animals, and motor circuits, among other projects. Pronovost suggests checking out SquishyCircuits.com for ideas, along with instructions for making your own conductive or insulating dough.
Michigan third graders take apart a toy guitar to see how it works (left);
multicolored squishy circuits.
Photos courtesy of Michigan Makers of the University of Michigan School of Information (left) and Robert Pronovost
TAKE APART OBSOLETE TECH
“Most schools have a closet somewhere that has a ton of old technology,” says Lister, whose own school had desktop computers dating back decades. Kids can dismantle old computers and repurpose what they find inside. One of her students made an exhaust system from the fans found inside the computers. Lister repurposed the wires to serve as conductive material for other projects—and for making cool jewelry. Not all schools have tech closets; if that’s the case, parents and community members are usually happy to donate. You’ll probably get a number of obsolete objects, including camcorders and cassette players.
BUILD SOME BRISTLE BOTS
Toothbrushes make great little robots, especially when you go to a dollar store and buy packs of battery-operated toothbrushes, says Lister. Snap the head off the toothbrush and find the vibration motor inside the motor. Then tape the vibration motor and battery on top of the bristles. Make sure the bristles are angled, Lister notes—if they aren’t, you can angle them by placing a heavy book on the bristles overnight. Bots can run races or be used as drawing machines by attaching markers.
GET ARTISTIC WITH BEADS
Students can make amazing creations with heat-fusible plastic beads known as Perler beads, says Rendina. She buys them from Amazon, but cheap ones are also available at Walmart. Kids can use plain, clear pegboards (also at Amazon) to create their own designs or depict their favorite fictional characters, using free, downloadable templates online. After the students have finished their bead artworks, place parchment paper over the designs and iron the beads to fuse them together. Rendina ironed her students’ creations and trained a few responsible eighth graders to help out.
INVEST IN SILHOUETTE PORTRAIT
This $99 digital cutting tool was originally designed for scrapbookers, but Fontichiaro also likes the fact that it doubles as a low-budget vinyl cutter that’s easy for children and grown-ups to use. Students can cut shapes to decorate laptop lids or smartphone shields. Fontichiaro also suggests that kids cut stencils from self-adhesive paper (like Contact) and use them, along with fabric paint or etching cream, to create designs on T-shirts or glassware gifts. As for materials, glassware and T-shirts are often available for $1 or less at secondhand stores, she notes.
Pizza boxes transformed into green screens. Photo courtesy of Heather Moorefield-Lang
PUT PIZZA BOXES TO USE
Pizza boxes can make excellent portable green screens, as Travis Nelson, library media consultant at Richland County School District One in Columbia, SC, demonstrated to Moorefield-Lang. Nelson starts by painting the interior (top and bottom) of the boxes green. Then he attaches little characters to green straws procured from Starbucks and uses the Green Screen by Do Ink app ($2.99, iTunes) to make videos of puppet shows and stories.
Looking for more ideas? Check out Make It @ Your Library, where projects can be filtered by cost, suggests Lister.
Linda Rodgers covers health and education for a variety of magazines and websites.
The University of Michigan News wrote a lovely article about Making in Michigan Libraries: Customizing Community Libraries! The article covers our partnerships with Benzonia Public Library and Niles District Library.
The following objectives of MML were identified in the article:
1. Build a sense of community
2. Help people take advantage of tools and shared resources to solve problems they have in their own lives
3. Build the next generation of thinkers
These objectives are why we have continued to do this work. We’re so thankful for our wonderful partnerships and all the opportunities we’ve been given!
Niles, Benzonia, other Michigan cities work with U-M to engage residents in creative ways
ANN ARBOR—The noise level at the Niles District Library is not very library-like some days. Voices are well above whispers. Things look out of place and the tables are a tableau of objects lying in pieces, patrons busily studying them, figuring out how they work and what other ways they can be used.
While the library’s guests aren’t focused on finding a book at the moment, there most definitely is an interesting story behind what they are doing.
Jean Hardy – Doctoral Student, School of Information. Image credit: Michigan Photography
It’s called Making in Michigan Libraries, a project that pairs rural librarians with the University of Michigan’s School of Information, taking libraries and making them into places to create, get active, connect with the community and learn in different ways.
“People are trying to find ways to stay engaged in their community,” said Laura Hollister, adult services team leader at the Niles District Library.
A partnership project like this accomplishes that, she said, and is “changing how the library functions in our community.”
There are costume creation labs, hack-a-toy events, smartphone photography workshops and a range of makerspace and STEM-based projects that bring benefits to local residents of all ages, she said.
Hacking Toys. Image credit: Michigan Photography
Turning libraries into more active spaces is at least a decade-old approach to maintaining libraries’ relevance, but the maker movement in libraries is novel. Making in Michigan Libraries provides resources and support to librarians who have found ways to use hands-on learning to customize their libraries to fit their communities’ needs.
At the Niles District Library in southwest Michigan, the Making in Michigan Libraries project spanned a year as the library converted basement storage space into a Skillshare Space. Skillshare was designed to help Niles residents improve their homes by loaning them tools and offering DIY training in repairs. This effort took on particular urgency when the area was flooded in February.
In northern Michigan, the project’s multiyear partnership with the Benzonia Public Library is continuing its events, which started in September with a course in improving smartphone photography. Benzonia’s community courses go through April and include a popular end-of-year activity connected to the holiday parade—the town’s biggest event of the year.
Kristin Fontichiaro – Clinical Associate Professor, School of Information. Image credit: Michigan Photography
Nearly every library that participates in Making In Michigan Libraries covers large rural areas, which, like anywhere, has needs for social engagement, said Jean Hardy, a doctoral student at the School of Information. He works directly with librarians to execute their visions.
“Rural communities are interesting places,” Hardy said. “They are simultaneously really diverse and rich in culture but lack population density and the sort of resources to make spaces like this happen.”
Local librarians are the idea people behind the projects. The School of Information assists the libraries as they determine what events most resonate, launch them and then run with them on their own—or come up with new ones. They collaborate with the School of Information, which provides assistance and funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the School of Information’s Founders Fund. The Library of Michigan has helped select sites and provided insight as projects were developed and implemented.
Together, the librarians and the School of Information determine what events most resonate, launch them and then run with them on their own—or come up with new ones.
Skillshare, for example, will go beyond the flood recovery work and into other DIY repairs, as well as launch a collaboration with an alternative ed program located in the basement of the Niles library, said Kristin Fontichiaro, a clinical associate professor at the School of Information who oversees Making In Michigan Libraries.
“Libraries are embracing a much deeper interpretation of their original vision,” she said. “Sometimes that comes from books. Sometimes that comes from the inside of a toy.”
Fontichiaro said the goal is “to help libraries explore the maker movement, to diversify who comes in the door, create new points of interaction with the community, encourage creativity and create opportunities for community to gather.”
And to solve at least three challenges:
Build a sense of community
Help people take advantage of tools and shared resources to solve problems they have in their own lives
Build the next generation of thinkers
“For a long time, libraries focused on how to do more for patrons that came in the door already,” Fontichiaro said. “What we do is part of a larger trend in librarianship: bring in new people, welcome different and more diverse interests and users, and explore concepts like libraries as hosts of online selling groups, and so much more.”
