Libraries across the country have been reimagining their community role and leveraging their resources and public trust to strengthen community-based learning and foster critical thinking, problem solving, and engagement in STEM. What started some years ago as independent experiments has become a national movement. The Space Science Institute's National Center for Interactive Learning (NCIL), in partnership with the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), received funding from the National Science Foundation for the first-ever Public Libraries & STEM conference, at the Sheraton Denver Downtown
In respect of the different modes of science communication including journalism, radio, online, I would propose that the process of making exhibitions and centres dedicated to science & technology is one of the hardest creative typologies. It also provides a very different type of engagement to other modes, in that it works in real time and space with real tangible objects and responsive media. The power of the real is also extended through the direct and collective involvement of people, providing a refreshing antidote to the potential alienating nature of social media and the ever-growing