Tribal Library Location: White Mesa, Utah
Year Opened: 2003
Service Area Size: 50 patrons/year
Square Footage: 1,900 square feet
Point of Contact: Griselda Rogers, education director
Project Description:
The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s Tribal Library seized the opportunity to revitalize an unused classroom space into a new digital inclusion lab. Since the library already has a well-functioning computer lab in another part of their building, they chose to focus their lab as an A/V Media Production Makerspace area. This space helps them meet their goals of providing leadership in the access and use of technology for their community stay ahead of trends, and to preserve their language and culture.
The new digital inclusion lab will welcome performers, artists, narrators, and others to create audio-visual productions, preserve language, perform music, record podcasts and document other activities. Inspiration for their media production-focused lab was pulled from YouMeda spaces in Chicago and Miami and the Malcolm X Library maker space in San Diego. The Tribal library used its budget to purchase essential equipment including audio and video recording equipment, computer monitors, peripherals (input/output devices such as mouses, scanners, microphones, printers, speakers, and displays) Adobe software suite, instruments, and digital storage.
The Tribal library is coordinating with other Tribal departments such as communications as potential partners to use the space to its fullest. Once the library begins collecting media productions from its patrons, there are multiple desired locations where they would like to publish or store the works. This includes sharing on social media through their communications department and storing physical copies such as CDs and DVDs for checkout at the library. In the future, the Nation may pursue other options, such as adding the materials to a digital history archive platform.
Best Practices & Lessons Learned:
- Involve the IT Department from the beginning: It can be a large undertaking to build something new in your current space, especially when ensuring your current network system can handle new connections or increased usage. During the one-on-one site visit, Griselda Rogers, the education director, ensured their IT director was at the visit to be able to answer questions, help foresee any issues, and become familiar with the overall project plan. This helped steer the project in the right direction and know it would have the IT support needed to make it into a reality.
- Analyze all your spaces for efficient use: The initial thought for the A/V media production room was to build it in a closet in a quiet part of the building. With the help of the in-person consultation, the Tribal library identified a better location in an unused classroom that was storing outdated equipment. By critically analyzing all the spaces available, the library created a layout for a larger media production room than initially thought possible and provided more space and options for their patrons.