By Ben Nielsen
You can either download a PDF of the fully designed Field Guide, or read the full text here and access individual PDFs of the activities.
Creative Community Field Guide PDF.pdf
The purpose of this field guide is to serve as a practical resource to library workers for fostering creative communities. It will look at what a creative community is, why creative communities are important, and the principles that will help you establish a creative community in your library. To help you apply these principles there will be an activity at the end of each of part in the “How” section. I encourage you to complete the activities and then take actionable steps to begin fostering a creative community.
This field guide does not include a comprehensive literature review since the purpose is practical rather than theoretical. However, I consulted many books and articles on the subjects of creativity, communities, and libraries. In the bibliography of this guide you will find all the materials I consulted which you can use for further reading in these different areas. Some materials dealt with just one of the subjects and some dealt with two together. None dealt significantly with all three.
I have also drawn on my own experiences working in and observing creative spaces and programming in both academic and public libraries. The ideas I present in this book are informing my own work as well.
Creating and creativity have many definitions depending on who you talk to. For our purposes, being creative is defined as making something.
This definition might lead you to think about makerspaces, but they are not the only kind of creative community that a library can foster. Making does not have to be physical or technical, although it can be. Making can be, among other things: writing, drawing, building, crafting, world building, editing, filming, recording, coding, composing, knitting, sewing, designing, fabricating, etc.
Being Creative is Making Something
Again, we will go with a broad and simple definition. For our purposes, a community is a group of several or more people that engage together directly.
This definition of community requires some level of activity on the part of community members together. It excludes passively belonging to an amorphous universal group such as “the film community” or “the maker community”. It does not, however, require that a community be formally organized or recognized, or that those participating in the community obtain formal membership.
A Community is a Group of Several or More People that Engage Together Directly
When we put these definitions together we arrive at our definition of creative community. A creative community is a group of several or more people engaging together directly and making something.
It is important to note that direct engagement may take many forms and does not exclusively mean that the group is making something together. A writers group, for example, may not all be writing the same piece but they can engage with each other to explore ideas, receive feedback, or encourage each other.
A Creative Community is a Group of People Engaging Together Directly and Making Something.
There are many venues that provide creative services and groups that could foster creative communities. Why should libraries care? There may be many reasons your library cares about helping creative communities thrive, but I have identified two that are important for any library: access and transformation.
One of the main reasons that libraries have been adding creative services or spaces is to increase access. This is particularly true to increase access for those who cannot afford to purchase these services from other providers. Access to tools and spaces alone is not enough to fully realize the potential of creative services. Access to a community will help creatives learn and improve skills, and produce more creative work.