I interviewed Lauren Britton Smedley, driving force behind Fayetteville Free Library’s new public maker space, for Shareable. Read the finished piece here: Are Maker Spaces The Future of Public Libraries?

Here’s the complete interview.

What was the inspiration to build the Fab Lab?

When I was working on my Master’s in Library and Information Science at Syracuse University, I took a course called “Innovation in Public Libraries.” In that class we were introduced to 3D printers, and the idea was posed: Does this belong in a public library? And I couldn’t really shake the idea, and so as part of that class for my final project I developed a proposal to build a “fabulous laboratory” in a public library. And at that time I was working as a clerk, while I went to school, here at the Fayetteville Free Library. So I brought the proposal to Sue Considine, who’s the director here, and said “I think we should do this.” She agreed, and so she brought me on right after I graduated to execute this project, and here we are!

So it’s short for “Fabulous Laboratory,” not “Fabrication”?

Yep. You know, MIT really runs the Fabrication Labs, and we don’t have the exact same equipment that they have — We are going to have CNC machines, and you know, the things that are at the heart of a Fabrication Lab — but we really want to leave it open to what the community wants, instead of designing it directly after the MIT specifications. So we have one MakerBot, we’re about to order a second one, and then in the new year we’re going to be bringing in CNC machines, laser cutters, things like that.

So you’re not using the MIT model. Is there anything else you’re going by as a model, or is it just what the community wants?

You know, I’m working and communicating with a lot of maker spaces across the country. Also some hacker spaces. So for example, Bre Pettis from NYCResistor and an inventor of the MakerBot — he and I have had a number of conversations about what belongs in a maker space like this. And some other people from maker spaces in Detroit, and I’ve done a lot of reading on it… It’s sort of a combination of responding to a community need, as well as reaching out to people who have done this before.

Tell me about the MakerBot.

Well, it’s called the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic, and if you go to MakerBot Industries’ website you can see it. It’s tiny. It’s like the size of a printer that you would have on your desk, and it uses ABS plastic — which is sort of in a roll, it looks like a piece of string — that you feed into it, and it can build 3D objects. Whether it’s an 8-year-old learning and using technology to create a superhero, or a local entrepreneur who develops a prototype and wants to build it himself.

What other machines are you looking forward to getting?

Well, I really want to have a laser cutter. That’s gonna be kind of exciting. And we’re getting another MakerBot. I want to have a whole little farm. And we’re looking right now into CNC equipment — and then really, from there we’re going to start doing some programming and hopefully get the space finished, so that we can then respond to what the community really needs. You know, to start out, someone gave me an idea: There’s a hacker space in LA called Crash Space that has “Take Apart Tuesdays,” where anyone can come and bring electronics that no longer work — whether it’s a cell phone or a fax machine or what have you — and there’s people there that help you take it apart and either build something new or simply learn how things work. So some of the equipment that we’re going to get is as simple as, you know, a toolbox.

As a not-for-profit maker space, will you be able to provide services to entrepreneurs, or will it be more for educational use?

This is actually going to be combined. The East Wing, that we’re going to renovate and turn into this Fabulous Laboratory — part of it will also be a business center. So the goal is to be able to provide local entrepreneurs with the ability to use the technology and, while we’re not quite sure of the financial model we’re going to use, we plan to make it as free and accessible as possible. So it’ll probably mimic what we do right now for paper printing, which is, you know, the first five pages are free, and after that it’s ten cents a page. So I imagine it’ll be something like, the first X number of ounces of plastic are free, and after that it’s X cents per ounce or something.

You’ve talked a lot about what the community wants. How has the community reacted so far?

We really are at the grassroots level. Again, we’re in the very developing stages of this project. We haven’t started renovations, and we just have the MakerBot. But there’s a professor, his name is Tim Brower, he runs the Design Works lab at Syracuse University, and he’s donated hours of his time to help me put the MakerBot together. And then he brings some of his friends from the community in to help me set it up… There’s pockets of people who are just so supportive, because they want to get access to this machine. And I think as soon as we start to roll it out, and people start to understand and see what this stuff can do, that it’s just going to grow.

Have you heard from other libraries and people with similar ideas?

Oh yes. Ever since word’s gotten out about this project, I’ve gotten emails and phone calls almost every day from other libraries saying “Yes, we want to do this, we don’t know how,” or “We’ve started and gone this far, what are you doing?” It’s wonderful for me to hear that because the base of this idea was that I want libraries across the country to have access to technology and to offer this kind of services and access to this — in essence, this new kind of literacy. I’ve been documenting the whole thing and will be releasing all of our — I guess sort of like a white paper, the project from start to finish — so that other libraries can see what mistakes we’ve made, what we did right, how we paid for things, and then be able to replicate it in some way on their own.

Cory Doctorow says you’re “made of awesome.” How does it feel to be getting all this attention?

I’m not gonna lie, it’s a little bit overwhelming. Particularly because, you know, I’m just one piece of this pie. Every librarian here at the FFL is a part of this project and a reason why it’s moving forward, and Sue Considine is just — she’s a visionary. So I’d love for the focus to be more on the library, and less on me.

Understood, but I still have one more question about you specifically. Your title is “Transliteracy Development Director.” Can you tell me more about that title?

Well, “transliteracy” is sort of this new word that’s floating around in library land, but the concept it’s referring to is actually not new. Transliteracy itself is the ability to communicate across a wide range of platforms. So traditional literacy, what people think of when they think of libraries, is really focused on information literacy: learning to analyze information, and helping people understand what’s good information and what’s bad information. Transliteracy aims to help people be able to communicate across this wide expanse of new technology. So, to be able to understand how to communicate effectively through digital literacy, visual literacy. It’s kind of this umbrella term for all these new literacies that have sort of bubbled up in the last ten years.

You’re raising funds through IndieGoGo. How has that experience been?

It’s been pretty incredible actually. That fundraising page developed — I went to the Contact Summit in New York City that Douglas Restaurants put on, and there were three $10,000 awards available. And we won one of them, which is incredibly awesome for this project. As part of that, IndieGoGo was one of the sponsors, and they helped us set up an account to do this open crowdsource funding. The library’s never done something like that before, and it’s been pretty interesting. We’ve had so far a great response. There’s 39 days left on the campaign, and so far we’ve made $13,480. That’s really exciting.

And are the funds coming from your community?

They’re coming from all over the place. There’s some from Fayetteville, there’s some from Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Indiana, Virginia… but there is certainly community support as well. It’s been exciting to see, especially in some of the comments that people write, “I sure wish my library would do this.” You know?

How do you think that libraries and information sharing will develop in the 21st century?

You know, I think that libraries are really centers for knowledge exchange, and a Fab Lab fits perfectly into something like that. This idea that libraries are a place where the books live, and you go to find a book, and that’s all it is, I think is really starting to shift. Libraries are a place for social transformation. They’re a place that you can go to get computer access, or access to technology that you can’t get anywhere else, and access to people. I think one of our greatest resources in a library are the librarians. They’re able to help people track things down and make connections, and really bring the skills of a community together in one place. At the Fab Lab, the impetus behind the whole thing was to create a center for knowledge exchange where we’re not just offering Intro to Word or Intro to Excel — that we can offer Intro to Computer Programming, or Digital Fabrication — these skills that are really important in the STEM fields, and we can push that information out for free. And how do we do that? By getting people in the community who know that stuff to come in and share what they know.

How does it feel to be a librarian at this point in history, when books are sort of being replaced by the Internet?

Well, I will be cautious and say that I don’t think books are being replaced. It’s just, there’s many more ways to get information than just one book. But I think it’s one of the most exciting times to be a librarian. There’s a lot of change happening, but it’s exciting change. Librarians are some of the coolest people I’ve ever met, and I just feel so lucky to be one of them.