LIBRARY AS MAKERSPACE

Check out our brochure to be handed out to all patrons:     [PDF format] Adult Events: Apps & Your Smartphone:    Bring your smartphone and your questions to informal sessions about smartphones and apps.   Got Mail?   Learn how to join groups, manage photos, use a shared calendar and other advanced email functions.   Jewelry Making:   Create one of a kind necklaces using beautiful beads, local shells, and old buttons.   Knitting Night:   If you need help seaming a sweater, would like to learn how to turn a cable, or just want to learn to knit - join us! If you already knit, are you swatching and measuring your gauge? Do you know which decrease/increase to use? This will be a fun night of social knitting with help available for beginners and intermediates.   Lynda.com:   Lynda.com is up and running on the Makerspace computer on the upper level of the library.   Learn software, creative, and...

All this talk about Makerspace is really so exciting, isn’t it? While much of the focus is on technology there will be many Makerspace events and happenings that have nothing to do with computers or gadgets and the like. One of those happenings will be Puzzling Thursdays. Born of our patrons’ love for the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle, the Duxbury Free Llibrary will be celebrating puzzles of all kinds on each Thursday in August. If it is a success we will continue into the fall. What to look forward to? We have a 42 ½ square foot crossword puzzle that will be hung on the wall (in sections) in the periodical room. Clue sheets and pencils will be provided.   We will also have various Sudoku, Kenken, logic, and word puzzles available. For those of you who like more tactile puzzles there will be a jigsaw puzzle, also in the periodical room, and rubic’s cubes, magic links, etc. are on our wish list. Please join us for the day, an hour, or even just a few minutes. This recu...

Here a great book that's mentioned on this video:   Unbored  by Joshua Glenn and Elizabeth Foy Larsen

We have a podcast blog for which we have highlighted the Makerspace initiative this week: http://difflepresents.blogspot.com Please subscribe to us on your Feedly or whatever Readers you use.... If you download podcasts from itunes, you can find us as a subscription podcast in their catalog. Search either Duxbury Free Library or Difflepresents. We've got 4 podcasts in the itunes catalog but plan to increase that number substantially in the weeks to come. There is SO much going on these days. Many initiatives to discuss and lots of people to interview and gain wisdom from! The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan Once Upon a Flock: Life with My Soulful Chickens by Lauren Scheuer Learning about Bees from Mr. Krebs by Alice Flanagan Arduino for Dummies by John Nussey Expect More: Demanding Better Libraries for Today's Complex World by David Lankes

The library can be a place where people passionate about their hobbies can share their love for things like knitting, chicken-raising, bee-keeping, coupon-cutting, photography, music, writing, electronic gadgets, fishing, travel... You name it, there's probably a community member doing it with knowledge, passion, and an interest in sharing their hobbies with others. Why does it have to be a big deal, an expensive commitment, a risky new challenge?  Why can't it be neighbors teaching neighbors and sharing their experience and passion about a life style choice? Listen, ask, dig under the surface for the expertise and commitment needed for great programming. Set up a regular schedule, provide space, equipment, staff support and good media advertising and your library will become the go-to place for information and support. The best teachers are people who are passionate about the subject - who are doing it for love.  Set up some practice sessions so you can help your patr...