University of Illinois School of Information Sciences Awarded Three-Year $498K IMLS Grant to Create Accessible Library Makerspaces

Library makerspaces offer community members the opportunity to tinker, design, experiment, and create with a range of technology in an informal learning space. However, because current makerspaces and maker tools are highly vision oriented, blind and visually impaired (BVI) people have limited access to these learning opportunities. A new project being led by Assistant Professor JooYoung Seo and Associate Professor Kyungwon Koh, Director at the CU Community Fab Lab, seeks to address this problem by creating accessible maker programs for BVI learners and developing training materials for librarians and maker professionals on accessible making. The researchers were recently awarded a three-year $498,638 National Leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS grant LG-252360-OLS-22) for their project,…