The Pibrary Community


Librarians have been working with Raspberry Pi as part of the maker movement almost since their invention. Here are some of the projects, articles and guides from libraries across the country. If you are using a Raspberry Pi in your library, please tell us what you have tried, what you need or send links to your work and programs.

Two articles that embody the spirit of the project and a good place to begin:
The Case for Open Hardware in Libraries, Jason Griffey
Learning to Code, Andromeda Yelton

Articles and tutorials:

Raspberry Pi for Educators and Librarians, Wes Holing
Talking to Computers: A Raspberry Pi toolkit for youth librarians [PDF], Danielle Wing
Adventures with Raspberry Pi: A Librarian’s Introduction, Nicholas Schiller
Do-It-Yourself Raspberry Pi OPACS, Jed Phillips [Library as Makerspace writeup]
Building a Bear that Tweets, Justin Hoenke & James McNutt
What To Do with a Raspberry Pi (The New $35 Computer That Could Replace Your Opac Terminals), Matt Enis
Take a Look at the Raspberry Pi – Library Technology Buzz, Amy Terlaga and Brian Auger
Fewer Dollars, More Sense | Field Reports, Richard Loomis
Piano Stairs with Arduino and Raspberry Pi, Make it @ Your Library
Life with Raspberry Pi: Sparking a School Coding Revolution, Chad Sansing
The Machine: Using a Raspberry Pi for Reader's Advisory [code], Matthew Murray
Learning to Code: some tips from librarians who have done it, Andromeda Yelton
Coding for Librarians: Learning by Example, Andromeda Yelton
Making Our Futures, Jason Griffey
Of Makerspaces and Media Labs: Tales From Two Small Libraries, Ariel Gilbert-Knight

Published Research:

5/2015, Content Ownership in the Age of The Cloud: A look at using Raspberry Pi to host and own your own projects, M. Wells
10/2014, Doing Good with a Slice of Pi: Ideas for Using the Raspberry Pi as a Low Cost Information Platform in Libraries [citation], M. Wells
8/2014, Easy as Pi: Designing a Library Program to Support Computational Thinking in Preteens, D. Wing & E. Meyers
5/2014, Evaluating Possible Uses of a Raspberry Pi in an Academic Library Environment, J. Cooper & J. Knight
1/2014, Critical making with a raspberry pi - towards a conceptualization of librarians as makers, [poster] K. Parham, A. Ferri, S. Fan, M. Murray, R. Lahr, E. Grguric,M. Swamiraj & E. Meyers
1/2014, Addressing Rural Library Technology Budgets with Single Board Computers:Testing the APC 8950 Rock Circuit Board Computer for Patron Access, M. Wells
7/2013, Using a Raspberry Pi as a Versatile and Inexpensive Display Device, E. Iglesias & A. Schlegel 

Libraries lending Raspberry Pis:

Princeton Library
Alsip-Merrionette Park Public Library
Arapahoe Library District (regular Raspberry Pi Meetup)
Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange
Old Bridge Public Library
Orange County Library System