Thursday 31 May 2018

HME Behind-the-Scenes: Museums of Mississauga


Join us for our behind-the-scenes visit to Museums of Mississauga's Benares Historic Home, followed by dinner at Capra's Kitchen where we'll be planning our 2018-2019 HME year!


We will meet at Benares Historic House (1507 Clarkson Rd N, Mississauga, ON L5J 2W8) for 4:30, where we will receive a tour by colleagues from Museums of Mississauga.

Behind-the-scenes tours have been very popular HME events; you can network with colleagues, ask and see how fellow HME members work in their own institutions, and engage with new ideas in a novel setting.

Following our tour, we'll head over to Capra's Kitchen (1834 Lakeshore Rd W, Mississauga, ON L5J 1J7) for dinner and our annual planning meeting! The drive from Benares to the restaurant is about 3 minutes.

Year end meetings are important, because it's where the upcoming schedule of HME is planned.
Can't make it, or missed out on your spot? Please email one of your HME coordinators to have your suggestions/ideas heard, and inform the upcoming HME year of 2018-2019!

NOTE: The tour will be FREE, but dinner is at the cost of the attendee.

Tickets will be available until June 20 or when they sell out!

HME visits the Hamilton Public Library Makerspace!

On Monday May 27 HME members visited the Hamilton Central Library Makerspace! We had a guided tour of the various spaces, followed by some chatting and snacks at the nearby Mulberry Street Coffeehouse.

Below are some notes from the visit.

  • Opened April 2016
  • Makerspaces open same time as library, but need to close about 30 mins before
    Sound studio
  • Sound studio: can make reservations, most popular space in Makerspace, have garageband and audacity
  • If you want to edit music, can do it from any Mac in HPL
  • could bring in your own instruments
  • Some people record podcasts
  • Maker studio: Most everything is free for someone in good standing with their membership, but people pay for materials
  • With 3D printer, staff operates it
  • Don’t have to be a 3D designer, some programs are thingiverse, tinkercad
  • Table top scanner
  • Smaller branches have converters for VHS, scanners, convert at 1:1, can also scan negatives and slides, Central is the only branch that has cassette tape to PC device
    3D printer at work, along with some printed objects
  • All Mac have complete Adobe suite
  • There’s a request process on their website where people can suggest differnt things for the HPL to have
  • Large scale printer
  • Gets a lot of use during art crawls and supercrawl
  • Charge by paper and ink, have to run the print first before they know how much it will cost, but still fairly inexpensive
  • Vinyl cutter/printer
  • Any image can be made into a sticker (also has device to cut out vinyl lettering)
Some of the textile tools in the Makerspace

  • Embroidery machine
  • Janome Memory Craft 500E
  • Can use almost any image and it’ll convert it to embroidery
  • Fabric up to light denim?
  • Frosh week folks have used it for their overalls
  • Video/photo studio: They have cameras, but people are welcome to bring in their own equipment
  • Vinyl printer for stickers
Vinyl stickers with our logo!
  • Can book online
  • Can’t book same day, can book up to 7 days ahead, only 1 space at a time
  • If it’s on your library card, you have to be here
  • Demographics: all over the map
  • Mostly people between 20-30
  • Stores will print (from Hamilton Centre)
  • Groups: ask first
  • Sometimes teachers can arrange special tasks that get kids to use all he different stations
  • Usually have programs on Saturday mornings at 10
  • Bring library card, photo id, sign a waiver (eg can’t print a weapon)
Delicious snacks from the Mulberry Street Coffeehouse