From Discard

to Discovery

Hands-On Community Programming

at a Tech-Focused University

Charlotte Kiger Price · Jill Chisnell · Ashley Werlinich

Carnegie Mellon University Libraries · CAPAL 2026

Breviary collages, 1800s?. Cataloged by Charlotte at University of Pennsylvania in 2009.

Who We Are

The Problem We’re Trying to Solve

What does ‘digital-first’ look like at scale?

Digital overwhelm - days spent on screens, in AI-mediated workflows

Siloed culture - departments that rarely interact with one another

Screen fatigue with nowhere to go - no informal, low-barrier alternative

The physical library underused as a true community space

Why Hands-On Making?

The intellectual (scholarly?) case

Flow state & cognitive rest

Low-stakes making with clear constraints produces flow, a deep absorption without demand. Process is its own reward.

(see Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)

Whole student approach

Hands-on creativity supports wellbeing, builds community, and develops tolerance for imperfection and trial-and-error — skills that transfer to research. (Hinchliffe, 2020; Zhu, 2025)

Fair use as play

Working with images and collage creates an accessible entry point for real copyright and fair use conversations.

The process IS the research

Moving away from perfectionism, setting limits, making something fast with what you have - this is another way research works.

Crafting the Workshop Concept

Inspiration for the Workshop

Combining history & making

Inspiration workshop blended history and making in a really interesting way

The blended workshop focus seemed like a great way to get a broader audience

Broadening our Audience

Book history, zines, and meme culture

Meme from @medievalistmatt on Instagram

The practices of remixing, collage, and remaking are as old as books themselves - from cut-up medieval manuscripts to Dadaist art to today’s internet meme culture.

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Our expertise spans book history, early modern literature, art, design, creative technologies, and digital participatory culture. This workshop is where those worlds meet.

Manuscript repair

LEFT: James of Voragine’s 14th-century text Golden Legend. Courtesy Cantonal and University Library Fribourg, Switzerland, Ms. L 34

RIGHT: Gerald Raab/ Courtesy Staatsbibliothek Bamberg

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Annotations & Doodles

LEFT: The Bible, that is, The Holy Scriptures contained in the Old and New Testament.

Imprinted at London : By Robert Barker ..., BS170 1616. Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library.

RIGHT: PA6525. H4 1587. Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library

instructive markings, doodles, ownership marks, annotations, reader-made indexes, grocery lists, censorship, etc.

Blackout poetry & artistic alteration

Al Taylor's drawings on pages of the book "Florentine Art Treasures" by Rosa Maria Letts (London: Roydon, 1970). ca. 1990. The Morgan Library and Museum. P 82-85.

Early Internet Remix Culture

Copying & Modification, shared visual language, working within technological constraints

Beyond the workshop

Part of a Broader Library Initiative

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Turning a fraught process into a more visible, community-facing one.

Programming and Instruction

Weeding, transparently(ish)

Pop-up and passive activities. Workshops. Orientation stations.

Picture File and Discard Library

Living, curated resources that create a culture of return.

Reframing the discarded book

Weeding is often met with understandable community anxiety.

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We’re working on a different story.

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Activating spaces.

Responsible reuse.

Building community.

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Who Shows Up

Open to everyone. No prerequisites, no grading, no sign-up required.

Students, faculty, and staff from across departments that don’t often interact end up together at the same table, making things with their hands.

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What We Learned & What You Can Do

Reflections

• Regardless of the topic explored, these sorts of hands-on approaches help to build student connection & conversation.

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• Creative activity and rest are good for you— find time for play and joy with your communities

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• As collections go increasingly digital, these activities activate library spaces and offer something unique to our users.

Physical presence, human expertise, the materials we steward — these are worth gathering around.

Thank you!

Any Questions?

Charlotte Kiger Price: charlotteprice@cmu.edu

​

Jill Chisnell:

jillianc@cmu.edu

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Ashley Werlinich: awerlini@andrew.cmu.edu

CREDITS: This presentation template was created by Slidesgo, and includes icons by Flaticon, and infographics & images by Freepik

References & Sources

From Discard to Discovery · CMU Libraries · CAPAL 2026

Slide 3

MIT Libraries — Budget reduction announcement (Nov. 19, 2025)

libraries.mit.edu/about/vision/our-approach-to-budget-reductions-at-the-mit-libraries/

Slide 17

Cavicchi, E. Lament for the MIT Libraries. MIT Faculty Newsletter, May-June 2026.

fnl.mit.edu/may-june-2026/lament-for-the-mit-libraries/

Slide 4

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper.

Slide 4

Hinchliffe, L.J. & Wong, M.A. (2020). From Services-Centered to Student-Centered. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 17.

Slide 4

Zhu, X. (2025). Student Engagement in Academic Libraries: A Conceptual Framework. College & Research Libraries.

crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/25844

Slides 4,14

Sheridan, K. et al. (2014). Learning in the Making. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 505-531.

Slide 14

Lotts, M. (2016). Playing with LEGO, Learning About the Library. Journal of Library Administration, 56(4), 359-380.