Playing with LEGO is fun and a great way to reduce stress, but… there’s more! Buidling with the blocks and mini figures can boost creativity, build up problem solving skills and help explain ideas and concepts to others. LEGO has developed special “Serious Play” buidling kits and even a certification programme for facilitators. Less seriously, you can mix and match your own LEGO kits and just experiment and that is just what we are going to do at TU Delft Library (coming soon!).
We are not the first academic library to <3 LEGO. A few weeks ago, I met Christian Lauersen from the Royal Library / Copenhagen University Library in Denmark who did a great stop motion Lego movie as a library introduction for new students. The movie is made with so much fun and love, that it shows and students really connect to that and to the library.
Last year at Next Library, I did a LEGO workshop session “Everything is awesome” which made me realise how easy and powerful it is to imagine while building and then share your thoughts with a group.
Then there is Megan Lotts, who introduced LEGO to the Art Library at Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA) and talks about her experiences and lessons learned and some other examples in a nice interview in Library Journal. She is all about connecting with students and LEGO helps her do that:
“This is what libraries really want. We want to engage. For me the LEGO [bricks] have been brilliant because they’re the same skills that we use when we research—[they’re] creative thinking skills, problem solving skills. And I find that now my students are honing these with the LEGO [bricks] they’re more prepared to search for library resources.” [quote from the interview]. That says it all, don’t you think?