maker.json is a schema to promote standards in the information we share about DIY spaces around the world toward fostering further awareness and improving collaboration.
There are a growing number of makerspaces, hackerspaces, DIY shops, innovation labs, coworking spaces, tech-enabled libraries, et cetera, all around the world, filling with people working on amazing projects from Arduinos to (RPi) Zeroes.
So many, in fact, it's increasingly hard to keep up. When I started looking around for lists, I found them: groups compiling data in Google Sheets, JSON files, and maps and collecting a variety of information in a variety of formats.
Enter maker.json, a small file you put at the root of website or at a public repository, storing standardized information about your space, its status, who is involved, what kind of tools are available, and where people can learn more. Think of it as a structured "README" file.
What does it look like? Check out an example of the maker.json specification.
From there, we've taken the first step in standardizing the information collected from so many other groups to this format, and built a structured API around this schema.
Following the launch, I was introduced to Ananse Group, aware of them as the main source for locations in this first version. Turns out they're already revising their current holdings, updating the database to several more thousands of spaces around the world and expanding what they're capturing. I'll be working to convert those locations to this spec, along with updating the spec itself to incorporate all the hard work they've put into not just collecting the information but working with many others to understand what they should be capturing. More details soon!
Maker.json was created and launched by Rob Baker in June 2016 to help establish and improve global networks of makers.
The original data populating the map is taken from several teams and organizations who are the leading champions of the maker movement, whether it's creating these spaces or researching how to make them more useful to their communities. The original data sources came from the following sources, with great thanks:
This maker.json schema borrows heavily (and gratefully) from civic.json, a similar initiative originally created by BetaNYC in 2014 as "a metadata standard for civic technology projects that is intended to complement project information in a github repository." Additionally, and including this website, we've taken from contributions from the Code for DC volunteers and employees of the Washington DC District Government, extending this specification to make it useful for a broader user base. A big thanks to those teams for their work and inspiration.