Abstract
One popular strategy to ensure academic makerspace success is developing collaborations with other campus units. Campus unit collaborations, like with most library services, enable an application of learning opportunities close to patrons’ point of need, or point of interest. In doing so, they often further library and maker-culture goals around equitable access to the technology and expertise involved in different forms of making. Makerspace literature frequently explores collaborations with academic departments and research labs, but less attention has been paid to collaborations with academic support units such as student engagement. The University of Idaho (UI) Library’s makerspace – the Making, Innovating, & Learning Laboratory (MILL) - successfully used a mobile makerspace to facilitate those collaborations and increase engagement with makerspace services as measured by attendance counts and variety of collaborative events. In most cases, engagement levels with makerspace services are much higher at co-curricular events, even though the learning experience is often truncated. This case study recounts the UI Library’s experience developing that “Mobile MILL”, collecting non-systematic qualitative and quantitative data on its use, and using that data to help demonstrate the impact of the MILL as a whole. The lack of systematic data precludes traditional forms of statistical theory creation or corroboration. However, in this case the qualitative differences between Mobile MILL and non-Mobile MILL data are sufficiently large to justify an exploratory analysis and further investigation. Doing so allows this piece to (1) make practical recommendations for how and why mobile makerspaces might be developed at other institutions, (2) highlight some necessary conditions for demonstrating the value of those makerspaces, and (3) assuming those conditions are met, provide strategies for such demonstrations.