How To Make a Thingy Thing

This week three of us took to the road to sound out some of Auckland’s neighbouring libraries about how they run their programmes and their openness to collaborating with/buying into Auckland Libraries summer reading programme Kia Māia Te Whai (KMTW). Barring some minor (and valid) criticism of KMTW our hosts were clearly impressed by the programme. Which is great right? Well maybe. You see, what was also clear was the variety of forms their existing reading programmes take. From one being largely activity based and performed away from the library with no check-ins, to another which is almost purely reading with regular check-ins with library staff. Of course when you stop and think about it this is entirely predictable as the libraries are tailoring their programmes to their community’s needs. And this happens at Auckland Libraries too when branches decide which activities they will run. So while KMTW is highly customisable that requires staff time outside of the time tak...

How does one make a thing? Or perhaps a better question, as Eric Ries asks, is “why should we make it?” This further echoes Mark Buntzen’s question, asked horribly early in the morning, with me only part way through my first coffee. “What do you want to see brought forth into the world?” I’ve been grappling with these questions, and am beginning to find the glimmerings of an answer. The 'thing' I care most about, is  access . I want to see people get (better, more) access, especially people who currently do not have it. The obvious question then, is access to what? That’s a bit harder. Not to books or computers (or 3D printers) - those are just delivery mechanisms for information. Maybe access to skills? That seems too short term. Perhaps it is access to ways of seeing or ways of knowing. If people could access the frameworks of knowledge, they could decide what they needed, and how to find it. For example, I acutely feel the loss of oral cultures and wor...