
The workshop is open to all ages, not just teens. Standing: Sha-Ĭloud901’s maker space is equipped with such high-tech tools as laser cutters and 3-D printers. Seated, from left: Emily Marks, Toni Braswell, Ashia Hardaway. He credits McCloy with making the city’s branches the talk of Libraryland. Memphis Public Library director Keenon McCloy and Mayor Jim Strickland. This article is a selection from the November issue of Smithsonian magazine Buy Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12 Cloud901 also features a fully equipped maker space (a kind of DIY technology innovation workshop), a performance stage, a hang-out area and an art studio.
Storyo us ukulele professional#
Two stories high, it contains a state-of-the-art recording studio staffed by a professional audio engineer, a robotics lab that fields a highly competitive team in regional and national championships, and a video lab where local teens have made award-winning films. The hip-hop beats and power tool noise are coming from an 8,300-square-foot teenage learning facility called Cloud901 (the numerals are the Memphis area code).

You can check out books and movies, to be sure, but also sewing machines, bicycle repair kits and laptop computers. naturalization ceremonies, job fairs, financial literacy seminars, jazz concerts, cooking classes, film screenings and many other events-more than 7,000 at last count. Here at the Central branch in Memphis, ukulele flash mobs materialize and seniors dance the fox trot in upstairs rooms. Libraries are no longer hushed repositories of books. It’s difficult to summarize the myriad changes taking place in American public libraries, but one thing is certain.

Storyo us ukulele plus#
Walking through its automatic doors on a weekday afternoon, I hear unexpected sounds, muffled but unmistakable, almost shocking in a library context: the deep, quaking bass beats of Memphis hip-hop, plus a faint whine of power tools cutting through metal. Hooks Central Library, a building of pale concrete and greenish glass, rises four stories in midtown Memphis.
