There are a lot of good, strong reasons for librarians to work with data. In fact, we already do work with data, both big and small on a daily basis. But you may have also noticed even more data-related tasks creeping into your workday and maybe even a subtle shift from information to data management […]
Beyond Scratch : Coding for kids
Scratch is the quintessential platform for teaching kids about coding. This is what they use in Code Clubs across the land and it’s used widely in schools as well. The drag and drop approach used by block programming languages is great for teaching coding concepts and computation thinking but at a certain point, some kids […]
Making library makers: A practical guide to developing digital making opportunities through openness and collaboration
This is the readable version of a talk that Carlos (Makercart) and I gave a talk at the recent CILIP 2016 conference in Brighton. First, a bit about us. Carlos is the creator of the Makercart project, a pop-up makerspace for libraries and other community organisations and Kate is co-founder of Artefacto, a creative technology […]
Upcoming maker workshops and talks
We’re super excited to be part of the Institute of Imagination Mini Maker Faire at OxoTowerWharf on the 11 and 12th of June. We’ll be there with the Makercart, a mobile pop-up makerspace for schools and libraries with a 3d printer, digital cutter, electronics, micro-controllers and robotics. We’ll also be hosting a Digital Making Workshop […]
An introduction to Making Library Makers
An intro Making Library Makers; An Intro was the first event for library makers run jointly by Artefacto and the Makercart Project. The event was created for staff in libraries who were interested in running maker events or otherwise learning more about the maker movement and makerspaces. It was held at Makerversity, a co-working, membership-based […]
“Community Libraries”: a Dutch Model
Much has been written about the ongoing shift to volunteer-led provision for public libraries in England – and from all manner of mouthpieces. Since the rise of this phenomenon, in the cold light of day of austerity politics, various governmental and organisational reports (such as Arts Council England and the Local Government Association and Locality), […]
Research adventures chapter 1
Recently, Artefacto have been developing a series of short, interactive resources aimed at helping people learn basic research skills. This is part of a bigger project to develop a series of collaborative, active-learning resources that can be used by both staff and students to explore new ways of teaching information and digital literacy and other […]
RSS is not dead, but Yahoo Pipes is: an overview of possible alternatives
Yahoo have recently announced they are sunsetting Yahoo Pipes, a sad but not entirely unexpected decision. One of the many awesome abilities of Pipes was that you could easily combine and manipulate multiple RSS feeds. This was great for creating a curated, multi-source RSS feed around a particular topic. What tool available still does this? […]
Locating the library at Mozfest 2014
The annual Mozilla conference (aka Mozfest) covers a wide range of topics and many that are very relevant to information professionals, including many on the ‘Build and Teach the Web’ track and others from across the other 11 tracks that formed the 3-day event. The Librarian-run courses tended to be on the Science Track because.. […]
North London’s first outdoor digital bookshelf
Ribbon Factory Library Wall For the last month here at Artefacto we’ve been working on a project very close to our own hearts and we’re really excited that launch day has arrived! The original idea for the project came from Sara reading about the Bucharest metro “library“, sponsored by Vodaphone, which enabled commuters to […]