New project to create accessible library makerspaces

JooYoung Seo
JooYoung Seo, Assistant Professor
Kyungwon Koh
Kyungwon Koh, Associate Professor and Director of the Champaign-Urbana (CU) Community Fab Lab

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 led by Assistant Professor JooYoung Seo and Associate Professor Kyungwon Koh, director of the CU Community Fab Lab, seeks to address this problem by creating accessible maker programs for BVI learners and developing training materials on accessible making for librarians and maker professionals. 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, "Promoting Computational Thinking Skills for Blind and Visually Impaired Teens Through Accessible Library Makerspaces."

For the project, the iSchool and CU Community Fab Lab will partner with the American Printing House for the Blind, Young Adult Library Services Association, and Reaching Across Illinois Library System Makerspace Networking Group. The research also has received support from the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) and Information Accessibility Design and Policy (IADP) program at the University of Illinois. Activities will include training maker professionals and conducting an accessibility status assessment, hosting a summer camp with BVI teens to co-design accessible maker curriculum, testing the developed accessible maker programs in four Illinois library makerspaces, and training library users who will benefit from a more inclusive and accessible makerspace.

"Just as curb cuts help more than a person who uses a wheelchair, accessibility features added to maker tools and learning materials can make the system more usable by everyone," said Seo. "The tangible making activities and integrated curricula in our project will bring the current maker movement a new insight into how we can broaden the participation of maker and STEM learning for underserved populations of diverse abilities."

The goal of the makerspace project is to not only enhance BVI learners' computational thinking skills and STEM interests but also help librarians and maker professionals become more confident and capable when working with BVI populations.

"This is one of the very few research projects conducted by, with, and for BVI learners, where their nonvisual approaches and sensory abilities, such as touching, hearing, smelling, and some remaining low vision, are utilized as a central asset in realizing the full potential of multi-modal maker learning," said Koh.

Koh's areas of expertise include digital youth, the maker movement, learning and community engagement through libraries, human information behavior, and competencies for information professionals. She holds an MS and PhD in library and information studies from Florida State University.

Seo's research focuses on how to make computational literacy more accessible to people with dis/abilities using multimodal data representation. He is an RStudio double-certified data science instructor and accessibility expert who is certified by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). Seo earned his PhD from the Learning, Design, and Technology Program at Pennsylvania State University.

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

New tool helps estimate societal impact of droughts

Droughts are increasingly recognized as environmental crises with far-reaching consequences, not just on water availability, but on agriculture, the economy, public health, and society. While current drought monitoring systems primarily focus on assessing drought severity using quantitative measurements, such as meteorological and hydrological data or economic losses, they often miss what matters most: how societies and communities are affected. 

Dong Wang

Stier to receive ALISE Excellence in Teaching Award

Adjunct Lecturer Zachary Stier has been selected as the Early Career Award recipient of the 2025 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Excellence in Teaching Award. He will be honored at an awards presentation during the ALISE 2025 Annual Conference, which will be held from October 6–8 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Zachary Stier

Nine faculty receive new appointments

The iSchool is proud to announce that nine faculty members have received new appointments. Anita Say Chan, Kate McDowell, and Dong Wang have been promoted to professor. Nigel Bosch, Jessie Chin, Melissa Ocepek, Matthew Turk, and Karen Wickett have been promoted to associate professor with indefinite tenure. Associate Professor Rachel Adler has been granted indefinite tenure.

iSchool Building

Fu and Li awarded 2025 Garfield Dissertation Fellowships

Doctoral candidates Yuanxi Fu and Lan Li have received Beta Phi Mu's 2025 Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship awards for their ongoing dissertation research at the iSchool. This prestigious award honors four doctoral students in library and information science, information studies, informatics, or a related field. Fellowship recipients are awarded $3,000.

doctoral students Yuanxi Fu and Lan Li