E-Textiles in Libraries

From light-up scarves to solar-powered backpacks to health monitoring fabric, innovative combinations of electronics and textiles are becoming more prevalent and impressive all the time, making appearances everywhere from the runway to medical settings. In the near future, these wearable technologies will be a standard part of daily life. E-textiles, including soft circuits, conductive fabrics, and sewable electronics, may not be familiar to all library patrons now, but the way that e-textile projects combine STEM topics with fun, familiar crafts make them popular for library programs, interesting to diverse groups, and a great tool for teaching new skills and techniques. Best of all, e-textile projects can be designed to fit into budgets of all sizes and to appeal to patrons of any age and level of technical proficiency. In this book, you’ll learn everything you need to know about the tools, supplies, techniques, and science behind e-textiles and find out how your library can design successful collections and programs around this hot new topic. The book features key information about the materials and techniques you’ll need to know, examples of libraries that have found success with e-textiles, step-by-step advice on program creation, and projects that can be used for fun and engaging library programs. By the time you finish reading, you will have everything you need to develop a program that will generate excitement within your community and introduce your patrons to new and useful skills. Keep your library on the cutting edge of technology with exciting and engaging e-textiles programming!

Carli Spina is the Head of Research and Instructional Services at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, an MLIS from Simmons GSLIS, and an M.Ed. in Technology, Education, and Innovation from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She frequently presents, teaches, and writes about a variety of emerging technologies and STEAM topics and their impact on libraries. She has published articles and book chapters about library applications of data dashboards, iBeacons, augmented and virtual reality, web design, gamification, mobile applications, data science, accessibility tools, and Universal Design as well as writing many articles for School Library Journal. Most recently, she co-authored ARL's SPEC Kit 358: Accessibility and Universal Design and an article on social media accessibility in the Marketing Libraries Journal. Her writing has been awarded both the 2018 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Writing Award for best post on The Hub and the Short Form Division of the 2012 AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers.

She was also a 2012 American Library Association Emerging Leader and a 2013 Harvard Hero. She can be contacted on twitter as @CarliSpina.

Helen Lane is the Instructional Design Librarian at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is responsible for designing digital learning resources, maintaining and enhancing the library’s presence in FIT’s Learning Management System, and outreach and engagement with blended and online courses. Intrinsic to her work is exploring, identifying and providing training in emerging technologies that support teaching, learning, and research goals. As co-director of the MakerMinds events at the FIT library, she has lead workshops on Arduino coding for wearables, sewing with conductive thread, and augmented reality software. She has written articles on a variety of subjects from AR as a library discovery tool to Evidence Based Practice in nursing.

She has previously worked at libraries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Public Library, Pace University and Columbia University. She holds MLIS from Pratt Institute and a post-graduate certificate in Instructional Design from Open SUNY.