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Academic libraries are ever-changing hubs, resolutely benefitting the students, faculties and communities that support them. However, with the advent of digital technologies, academic libraries have lost their monopoly as the primary information providers. As noted by Filar-Williams and Folkman (2017), the future of libraries is to be user communities engaging in creating content and using it for community-building, connecting people, engaging students, assisting researchers, advancing knowledge production and promoting knowledge-sharing. Makerspaces, also called hackerspaces or fablabs, make a unique contribution to the partnership between academic libraries and digital humanities by providing a creative space for learning new skills and knowledge, experimenting, and sharing materials and equipment. The American Library Association (ALA) pointed out that library makerspaces cultivate community around learning and that they reinforce learning, spark innovation and build problem-solving skills. De Beer et al. (2017) describe ‘making’ as applying creative skills using technologies and tools both digital and analogue, and maker-community activities as driven by values of collaboration, experimentation and problem-solving. The term ‘makerspace’ has been in use since the publication of Make magazine in 2005, and the subsequent launch of Maker Faire, an event that demonstrated the popularity of making and showcasing new technologies (Wong & Partridge, 2016).
Makerspace is a collaborative space where people with ideas and interest in technology come together to learn new things, work with their peers on projects, invent new projects, share ideas and consider new ideas. It thus provides the physical space that promotes collaboration between individuals with various and distinct areas of knowledge, which is fundamental to fostering a creative environment. As noted by Konopasky and Sheridan (2020), the making happens across a variety of spaces where there is an educational focus, both informal (i.e, museums, community centers and libraries) and formal (from K–12 to higher education). Makerspace movement thus aimed at supporting a range of learner activities and outcomes including equity, access to technology, virtual community and support, social interaction and creativity (Konopasky & Sheridan, 2020). This expansion of academic library space and function is broadly meant to allow the library to more aptly house functions that support academic success and provide opportunities for faculty and students from different disciplines to mingle (Lewis, 2017).
The establishment of makerspaces encompasses a variety of spaces that match the variety of ways whereby students and faculty do their work quietly and privately in groups with their own technology and with technology supplied by the library (Lewis, 2017). Libraries have remained an ideal setting for makerspace events, and many makerspaces offer community resources like software, hardware, electronics and more. Makerspaces vary depending on the library, but involve providing access to a litany of creative tools like laser cutters, 3D printers, sewing machines, bike repair facilities, microcontrollers, circuits, clay and porcelain (Mestre, 2020). Makerspaces are also associated with creating, building and crafting, and getting hands-on experience in activities ranging from woodworking, sewing and building computers to audio-recording and video editing (Fourie & Meyer, 2015). The success of makerspaces at drawing students to the library is gaining global attention, and universities worldwide are turning to academic libraries as a model on which to base their own makerspaces (Curry, 2017).