Enthralled by the surge of digital production in the area of storytelling? Believe it can be used to teach or communicate concepts relevant to digital humanities and librarianship? Hesitant to get started on your own?

Inspired by the brilliant MOOC, ds106, and energized by the potential power of group dynamics, I’m proposing a talk/make session. Let’s talk about how digital storytelling can be leveraged by humanists and information scientists, look at a couple of the VERY many tools at our disposal on the open Web and then storyboard an idea to leave with and implement after THATCamp!

This is a talk session for those who are thinking about how to bring a maker space into an academic library. If you’ve been following the library and maker space movement, then you know that people usually don’t think about libraries when they think about maker spaces. And they especially don’t think about creative, collaborative, maker spaces when they think about academic libraries.

But as universities and colleges become more and more about the experience they offer and not just the degree one can attain, the learner’s experience in the library becomes a great opportunity to attract and retain students. Today’s students need the opportunity to move beyond what library information commons offer – computers, group study spaces, whiteboards – to tools to be producers – taking their knowledge and theory into application and prototyping.

Maker spaces tend to be STEM centric. (Another great opportunity for libraries!) In this session I’d like to facilitate a discussion on the idea of creating a ‘maker space’ in an academic library that incorporates the Digital Humanities. What would the guiding principles be? What would the space look like? What equipment would be needed? What software? What furniture? Supplies? What else? How should it be supported? Advertised? Assessed? And more.

If this topic interests you I hope you’ll come and contribute. I hope it will be a great opportunity to come away with a plan of action or at least a better vision for how it could be done.

Kate Ganski, Library Instruction Coordinator, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee

Notes were compiled from our TALK on Google Docs titled: DH and Makerspace Mashup. Please continue to add ideas here and let us know what projects and conversations develope back at your home institutions.

Let’s keep the conversation going on Twitter: #DHMakerspace

I’m a big fan of talking. I like to talk, to share ideas, to chit-chat, shoot the breeze. This being my third THATCamp, I’m done with all that. I’ve yacked about DH and Libraries, twice. I’m ready to be a maker, a doer, a hands-on digital humanities guru. What’s holding me back, you might ask? Well, I haven’t gone back to the basics and become the self-taught coding hacking machine of a DH-er that I once thought I’d be. But, I know what I’m good at, and I’m ready to give that to the DH community.

I propose that we take one hour-long session, pick a project from DHCommons (an amazing little site that lists DH Projects AND the work that they need done to help them along) and just freaking do it. Need data entry and looking for librarian collaborators? Great! I’ve got 5 people sitting around with laptops who are excited about DH work and ready to do something! Need Beta Testers to break your site? Cool! Let’s all access it from smart phones simultaneously! Have a pile of “reference” questions that need answered? You got it! Our powers united creates Captain DHBrarian! Want to create a bibliography of THATCamp? Been there. Done that (still needs work!)

Simply, lets find something DHish that needs to be done, organize our efforts and quickly accomplish it. A range of skills and proficiencies can participate in this session, and there’d be only one rule: Lets do this thing.