The Hive
Spokane Public Library
Innovation Synopsis
Conceived in partnership with Spokane Public Schools, The Hive™ is a cutting-edge facility that includes a teacher training space and acts as the home base for Spokane Virtual Learning (a division of Spokane Public Schools). It also includes four maker studios and a classroom where creators-in-residence get to share their art with the community.
Challenge/Opportunity
Spokane Public Schools needed a teacher training facility…sometimes. Instead of investing millions of dollars in a building destined to sit vacant most of the time, they partnered with Spokane Public Library. The two organizations went in together on a successful capital bond program to make it happen. SPS said (and we’re paraphrasing here), “We need that training facility to be somewhere in the building, but the rest is yours. Go nuts."
Key Elements of Innovation
Our experiment is affectionately called The Hive™ for the variety of learning and activity that takes place there. Inside this single self-service building, you’ll find:
- Teacher training facility for Spokane Public Schools (accommodates 183)
- Spokane Virtual Learning offices and meeting space
- Flexible meeting space (with cutting-edge technology)
- Maker studios (with stone age technology)
- Classroom
- Art gallery
- Artist-in-residence program
- Self-service access with your library card
Achieved Outcomes
- 300+ bookings from Spokane Public Schools; 200+ public bookings, from knitting clubs to social justice campaigns, since opening in August.
- Shantell Jackson used her studio space to expand her paintings to larger canvases. She had her first show in October 2021.
- Shawn Brigman built a traditional sturgeon-nosed canoe.
- Miguel Gonzales is building a traditional Mexican Lotería de Spokane to document and celebrate local Black, Indigenous, Asian, immigrant and LGBTQIA+ people of diversity and their organizations.
