2012 IST Fall Conference: Digital Literacy, Maker Spaces and Libraries Today
December 21, 2012 | Diana | Comments (0)
The 2012 Information Services Team Fall Conference held on November 27th explored the evolving role of reference services including the role of maker spaces and its connection to our strategic plan initiative of supporting a city of innovators.
One of the keynote speakers was Matt Ratto, an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto and Director of the Semaphore research cluster on Inclusive Design, Mobile and Pervasive Computing. He also leads ThingTank Lab, a non-profit lab space and research project examining and designing the Internet of Things.
His presentation focused on new digital technologies and the critical literacy skills needed to successfully navigate the mass media and technology of today. Matt spoke about the 'maker movement' – and the ways in which this movement and the tools, technologies, and community spaces engendered by it work to provide support for new types of educational opportunities.
His view is that there is a connection between digital literacy and a sustainable democracy and that we need to be able to “make and produce”, not just consume the mass media and the new technologies that we all constantly access. There is a role for the library in this, libraries have a long tradition of helping to create and sustain literate populations. A next step, is to help our customers take control of technology by providing more technical training and promoting critical literacy skills- and there are a number of public and academic libraries currently working to include maker spaces as part of their offerings. Check out the links above and learn more about these concepts and maker spaces.