Welcome to new and recent MakerBridge community members! This past weekend, MakerBridge visited LITA Forum, and we had a lot of interest and great questions. We decided to put together this welcome post to help answer some of the most common questions we got and to introduce new people to what we do at MakerBridge.
What is MakerBridge? (Our elevator pitch)
MakerBridge is a community that welcomes all makers but is focused especially on librarians, teachers, and other educators. We exist to help people find answers and advice as they set out to create a makerspace, run activities, or maintain their makerspace. We see ourselves as discussion facilitators and “makerbrarians”–we are the librarians who specialize in helping you get answers and connect to the maker community.
Who should/can join? How do you join?
Anyone with an interest in making or makerspaces should join–you don’t need to have any prior knowledge at all, just an interest! You can join by signing up on our website (click Create an Account in the navigation) and/or following us on Twitter. You can also follow the news feed on our front page or follow our blog by getting their RSS feeds.
Who runs MakerBridge?
A variety of people helped build the site, but the current MakerBridge team consists of four people: Sharona Ginsberg, Kristin Fontichiaro, Emily Mitchell, and Ayla Stein. All of us work full-time at separate jobs and contribute to MakerBridge in our spare time. You can find out more about us on the About page.
Are you officially affiliated with a university?
The University of Michigan’s School of Information allows us to host the site on their servers and one of the MakerBridge team (Kristin Fontichiaro) works as a faculty member there. Despite these connections, we are not officially affiliated with the university or with any university. Sharona Ginsberg works at the University of Michigan, Emily Mitchell works at SUNY Oswego, and Ayla Stein works at the University of Houston.
What do you do once you’ve joined MakerBridge?
There are a lot of ways to take part in the community and participate. Read and comment on our blog posts, and get in touch with us about writing a guest post if you’ve got something to share. Got a question for the MakerBridge community? Contact us through the website or tweet at us and we’ll help you reach out to other makers and educators to see what advice others have. You can also post in our forums, and we will soon have a resources page for you to check out.
Questions? Ideas? Wanna help out? We’d love to hear from you! Maker culture is about relationships and collaboration, and MakerBridge is about community. We welcome anything you have to offer. Leave a comment below, tweet at us, post in the forums, or get in touch through the contact form!
Image Credit: “Welcome” by Flickr user Ged Carroll
