Elisandro Cabada has worn many hats during his career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Assistant professor for the university library, interim head of the Mathematics Library, and 3-D printing project coordinator, among others. His commitment to developing and using technology for library service and outreach won him a 2022 Movers & Shakers award. Library Journal recently reached out to learn more about his innovative work.

LJ : How has your role at the University of Illinois changed since the Movers & Shakers profile was published?

Elisandro Cabada: I’ve had three hats. Now I’m only going to have one way forward, which is going to be merging technologies and immersive scholarship at the library and as the director of the [Grainger Engineering Library] IDEA Lab [Innovation, Discovery, DEsign & DAta Laboratory]. It’s bridging the function and theoretical worlds of supporting emerging technologies, which I’m seeing more and more happening at academic libraries. I’m an IT pro, I know how to run the equipment. But the important role the library faculty plays is that we have that other background that we can apply to managing relationships, understanding the pedagogical basis of these technologies, and articulat[ing] that in a different way with different jargon that has been useful. I set the tone and the vision for this space, and then the staff implements.

Why is it important for emerging technologies to be part of academic libraries?

One thing that’s happened in the last six to 10 years, that I’ve been keeping an eye on, is that there’s a design learning pedagogy that’s taken hold in academia. More and more departments tend to be very technical. Engineering has a lot of computer science and mechanical classes which are integrating these technologies into the curriculum. They build maker spaces, but they’re specifically for their student populations, which are very small compared to the overall 50,000 students at Illinois. They usually say they’re available to everybody, but they can’t really operationalize that because they don’t have the staffing, they don’t have the background and understanding of how to do outreach to different populations. What they do, they do really well. But they do it really well for their department, because that’s their constituency. We ask, “Who else, who’s going to be there to provide access to these spaces, these technologies, but more importantly, these concepts?” How do we get these accessible to everyone and not just the constituents of that department?

What does it take to move emerging technologies out of specifically technical departments and into more general use?

There are three things we do to provide access to technology, which is where most of these spaces start, because we know what’s out there. And that involves budget approvals for one-time purchases, which we can get relatively easily.

The second one is expertise. That’s the hardest one, in many ways, because that comes with budget lines recurring for people. People are expensive. That took longer. I started with just me, but now I have a team of three people. We have a day-to-day lab manager who’s the IT professional keeping equipment running, supervising to help the students. Then we have an outreach librarian who we just got approved. Her entire role would be outreach to underserved and underrepresented communities. It could be first-generation students, rural communities, women in science or engineering as an underrepresented group. It could be BIPOC students, LGBTQIA+, Indigenous populations.

Finally, what the library uniquely provides is that outreach and engagement to those communities, and that’s within our professional values. It’s just part of what we traditionally do. It’s a different type of medium. Instead of books and databases, it’s 3-D printers, but it’s the exact same thing we’ve been doing since the very beginning. Because access and understanding of technology is information literacy.

What populations sign up for these courses and workshops?

About half of my students are from engineering. I think that’s because of our proximity to the engineering campus. But the other half are from all over campus. It’s also not just undergrads, it’s graduate students, PhD students, retirees, some of them brought their own children. I wanted to learn why they are here. I wrote a paper about this. About half of them just wanted to learn and half wanted to have fun, which was really important to me, because those are the populations I want to reach. The library is the least formal learning environment in academia, in any community, really. It’s the space I feel comfortable in, and I can learn a complex skill without somebody judging me. I can fit, I can fail out in the open. And then we can try it again. Because the goal here is to have fun, not for you to be graded.

What is the benefit to those who aren’t seeking degrees, at least at the starting point?

It’s my hope that by introducing them to these technologies, they can pivot toward using that information in their school, or in their posts, education, career, or life just in general. Discovery and play are very important.

When it comes to operationalizing, giving access to the public, it can be a little more complicated because of liability, or because some of this stuff is generated through products that require IDs. But because we’re [open to the public], and because of my own professional values, it’s really important to me do that outreach to the community. We’ve done that a number of ways this past summer. We reached out to MakerGirl, which is a national group that primarily focuses on teaching STEM concepts of 3-D printing to girls between seven and 15. We did two workshops for them. They were doing a mobile tour this summer and reached 650 young girls across the United States. Champaign was their second stop after Chicago. I used to work in two school districts as a secretary, so I had contacts in both of them. We had two sessions, each of them capped at 25. They filled up in about two or three days after opening registration. We had a waiting list of 16 families at one point. The Girl Scouts of Central Illinois also wanted us to do a couple of sessions for them. It was really rewarding because there’s a lot of demand, and it’s from the community, not just [the University of] Champaign-Urbana.

What would you recommend to other academic librarians interested in embracing emerging technologies?

When you make proposals, give them a really granular timeline. And give yourself a lot of small goals. Because that’s many more things to celebrate, but also because if your goal is “We’re going to create a big space, it’s going to have a million people, and we’re going to use all the equipment,” that’s going to take you five or six years to get to that point. Also, manage your expectations for you and your stakeholders. Put it in your timeline: “By this point, I’m likely going to need additional support.” And be willing to articulate the fact that at some point, you can’t do it all yourself. There just aren’t enough resources and time.