NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced a new partnership with Maker Media, publisher of Make: magazine and producer of Maker Faire, to launch the first-ever Mini Maker Faire in stores nationwide. Barnes & Noble and Maker Media are “Calling All Makers” to participate at their local Barnes & Noble store the weekend of November 6-8 to share their inventions, ideas and more.
A Maker Faire is a community-based learning event that inspires everyone to become a Maker and connect with people and projects in their local community. These events are for people of all ages and backgrounds who have a desire to create, learn and share, and who bring a DIY mindset to technology.
“We are thrilled to host the first-ever retail Mini Maker Faire in partnership with Maker Media,” said Kathleen Campisano, Vice President, Toys & Games at Barnes & Noble. “Literacy is at the core of what we do, and rolling out the first-ever Mini Maker Faire in stores nationwide signals our commitment to what we believe it means to be literate in the 21st century. Tech literacy and being tech literate is a huge part of engaging in everyday life and remaining connected to the world. No other retailer is more poised to serve the community in this endeavor. It is both a privilege and responsibility, which is why this partnership and hosting this Mini Maker Faire in stores across the country is so important to us.”
Barnes & Noble’s Mini Maker Faire will offer authentic, credible experiences that Maker Faire attendees have historically come to expect; all the while introducing, educating and engaging others to what the Maker movement is all about. The Mini Maker Faire will feature hands-on learning and making opportunities in the areas of ideation, creative thinking, art, design, construction and innovation, as well as programming, coding and 3D printing – with activities for children ages five and up to adults. For information, customers can visit BN.com/MakerFaire, and Barnes & Noble and Maker Media will be announcing much more about the Mini Maker Faire in the coming weeks.
“We’re so pleased to bring Making into the national spotlight through this exciting program,” said Sherry Huss, Vice President of Event Operations and co-founder of Maker Faire. “Barnes & Noble is one of our most important partners and the largest reseller of Make: magazine. Now Barnes & Noble customers who know us through Make: will be introduced to the Maker Faire experience. With access to tools and resources, they can learn new skills, discover their personal Making passion, and be inspired by local Makers in their communities.”
The Maker movement has boomed in recent years, as evidenced by the more than 130 worldwide Maker Faires that took place in 2014, including one at the White House1. In fact, Makers inject $29 billion into the economy every year and more than $116 million has been raised for over 1,400 technology-related projects on Kickstarter, most of them hardware gadgets, according to Atmel, a company that designs and manufactures semiconductors and microcontrollers2.
The Mini Maker Faire at Barnes & Noble will run throughout the weekend of November 6-8 and will consist of three main areas:
- The Make Workspace – where customers will experience the latest technologies in 3D printing, robotics, coding, programming and more.
- Meet the Makers – the place in store where customers will hear from leaders, top brands and local makers about the latest trends in designing, building, creating and making.
- Make & Collaborate – where customers can immerse themselves in the process of ideation, rapid prototyping, circuitry and more.
Barnes & Noble and Maker Media will announce more exciting details over the coming weeks. Customers can visit BN.com/MakerFaire regularly for the latest news.
1. Maker Faires Around the World, Maker Media.
2. “4 Ways Makers Are Changing the World,” Huffington Post, Tae Yoo, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Cisco (May 15, 2015).
About Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) is a Fortune 500 company, the nation’s largest retail bookseller, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products. The Company operates 647 Barnes & Noble bookstores in 50 states, and one of the Web’s premier e-commerce sites, BN.com (www.bn.com). The Nook Digital business offers a lineup of popular NOOK® tablets and eReaders and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content through the NOOK Store®. The NOOK Store features more than 4 million digital books in the US (www.nook.com) and UK (www.nook.co.uk), plus periodicals, comics, apps, movies and TV shows, and offers the ability to enjoy content across a wide array of popular devices through Free NOOK Reading Apps™ available for Android™, iOS® and Windows®.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained by visiting the Company's corporate website at www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
Barnes & Noble®, Barnes & Noble Booksellers® and Barnes & Noble.com® are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc. or its affiliates. NOOK® and the NOOK logos are trademarks of Nook Digital, LLC or its affiliates.
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About Maker Media
Maker Media is a global platform for connecting makers with each other, with products and services, and with our partners. Through media, events and ecommerce, Maker Media serves a growing community of makers who bring a DIY mindset to technology. Whether as hobbyists or professionals, makers are creative, resourceful and curious, developing projects that demonstrate how they can interact with the world around them. The launch of Make: magazine in 2005, followed by Maker Faire in 2006, jumpstarted a worldwide Maker Movement, which is transforming innovation, culture and education. Headquartered in San Francisco, Maker Media is the publisher of Make: magazine and the producer of Maker Faire. It also develops "getting started" kits and books that are sold in its Maker Shed store as well as in retail channels. The Make: brand caters to a universe of more than 25 million makers collectively across its Make: magazine, makezine.com, Maker Faires, and Maker Shed properties.
