Community engagement

Hosted by The Edge at the State Library of Queensland, and philanthropically funded, CitizenJ was a pioneering new-media journalism project that offered support, training, publication and experimentation opportunities, and hosted the monthly Walkley Media Talks. CitizenJ aimed to equip everyday people with the skills to become credible citizen journalists. The result of this project can be found by clicking the link below. Citizen J was funded through the Fairfax Foundation.

Creative Community Computing (CCC) is a series of workshops where participants receive hands-on, real world experience with taking apart, breaking and fixing computer hardware, and creating their own custom-built computer operating system using free software. The Creative Community Computing website was created to empower regional communities across Queensland (and wherever there's a stable Internet connection) to deliver this program; just add computers. As a precursor to the SLQWiki, many of the innovations developed as a part of Creative Community Computing were carried over to that project.

Fun Palace is a movement focused on empowering everyone to be an artist or a scientist or both in their community. State Library of Queensland has held Fun Palaces almost every year for the past five years and it has become a fixture in the annual calendar of public programming. Held the first weekend in October, crowning the Queensland school holidays, State Library has delivered public events onsite and supported public libraries across Queensland through grants, bursaries and professional development to do the same.

State Library of Queensland through The Edge public programming as delivered a lot of programming focused one empowering community to create plays based experience through the development of computer games, (life size) boardgames and live action role p[laying experience. All of these programs have had a strong focus on experiential learning and public outcomes that can be seen still in the space. This commitment can be seen traced through the Great and Grand Rumpus of 2018 and the upcoming bigger sequel coming in 2021. More cardboard. More shenanigans. More chances to come and play.

Children are asked all the time to respond to the creative impetus of adults and the Great and Grand Rumpus (2018) as the State Library of Queensland bold attempt to flip that assumption and reverse the equation, with the creative work of children informing the work of adults. Huge cardboard sculptures, storytelling and school holiday activities, the Great and Grand Rumpus was a collaboration between the Applied Creativity and Young People and Families teams at State Library of Queensland that engaged with community of all ages to take ownership of public space.

Hack the Evening is State Library of Queensland's nine year old meetup of makers, tinkers and nerds of every stripe come together to make. Hack the Evening has been a corner stone of The Edge and Applied Creativity team offer, predating the Fabrication Lab and in essence informing the establishment of that idea in The Edge building.