3D printing … first steps

Hilary Petrie

Open Learning Officer,

Motherwell Library LogintoLearn

CultureNL

Presentation to SLIC Digital Champions, June 18th 2015.

The journey so far …

• SLIC Petting Zoo project (Summer 2013) allowed CultureNL libraries to begin to engage staff and public with new technologies.

• Successful SLIC funding bid thereafter provided funding for kit to continue engagement and training …and a 3D printer

The journey so far …

• Help from Dundee Libraries

• more on the Dundee story http://www.leisureandculturedundee.com/node/2331

Learning so far…

• Need time to – Explore– Play– Learn– Try– Retry

• Purchased MakerBot Replicator (5th Generation) and downloaded accompanying software.

• Running Makerbot software on Macbook – allows for import of design files.

• Filament is PLA – a biodegradable corn starch. High temperatures contained within extruder.

• Printer has 5 inbuilt templates for test prints

Explore more of what’s possible at

www.thingiverse.com

Alsohttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26543569 - NOT for the squeemish. Facial reconstruction using 3D printing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGSo_I86_lQ – 3D printed hand

Next steps on the journey …

• Consultation and engagement with users and other potential partners

• Series of engagement sessions over coming months.

• Learn more – 3D Scanning, using the software, staff training.

“Makerspaces just might take over libraries. School of Information Studies

professor Dave Lankes seems to think so. In his presentation to New York

State librarians earlier this month, he asked the roomful of librarians to

imagine libraries as places for people to learn and create, not consume

and check out. In another talk he gave in October, he declared,

“What will kill our profession is not e-books, Amazon, or Google, but a

lack of imagination.”

http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/a-librarians-guide-to-makerspaces/

Questions / discussion• Can we see a space for 3D printers, 3D

scanners, laser cutters etc in our libraries?• What could we do with them?• Who do we engage with – where do we

start?• “Learn and create vs consume and check-

out”