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New Maker Space Coming To Norfolk’s Pretlow Library

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Jamelia Todd
11:16 pm

March 12, 2021

An exciting new resource is coming to the Pretlow Library, just a few hundred feet from the Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk.

The city has announced that a new maker studio will be available to the public in a second branch, and it will be similar to that already found in the Slover Library.

A maker studio is a place where the kind of technologies not commonly found at home are gathered in one place for members of the community to reserve and use. In the Slover Library in downtown Norfolk, one can find laser cutters/printers, four kinds of 3-D printers, embroidery machines, soldering irons, modeling software, and more.

The equipment is available to people possessing a library card and who have gone through orientation and made a reservation.

The new studio will be named after Randi Marston Peterson:

The maker studio, named “The Randi Marston Peterson Studio @ Pretlow,” will memorialize Randi Marston Peterson, an avid reader and regular patron of the Van Wyck Branch Library. Peterson died in March of 2020 and included a charitable bequest to the Norfolk Public Library Foundation in her will. The 2,000-foot studio will house cutting-edge technologies, including a recording booth, photography equipment, computer systems, sewing machines, collaboration spaces, and other programming equipment.

The new maker studio is scheduled to open in late 2021.