 |
 |
I find this conversation interesting, mostly because the "why do it" reasons given parallel so closely what we are working on at NC State in our new library building. Except it doesn't have anything to do with makerspaces! Our emphasis is on taking expensive visualization and high performance computing capacity and making it available to students all across our campus. Some would ask why we are building massive visualization walls and working on creating a cloud computing environment where anyone can request temporary access to high performance computing in order to build "stuff" to render on the visualization walls. And it's just the same as the reason given for doing makerspaces in academic libraries: while faculty on fancy grant projects have access to high performance computing nodes, nowhere on campus is this kind of computing and visualization openly available for undergraduate students to creatively use. It's neat to see the different directions we go with the same underlying reason. -emily ------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 11:46:19 -0700 From: Lisa H Kurt <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Maker Spaces and Academic Libraries I think some folks have already responded to 'why' pretty well, but I figured I would add to the discussion from our perspective on the ground at UNR in the DeLaMare Library and answer Edward's question too. As far as why we are developing a makerspace or why we have 3D printers in the library- I think Jason hit on two really important points - curriculum and research support. In the library we hardly question buying journals that cost upwards of $15K that may only support one department and in some cases just one individual researcher. The 3D printer is already supporting several schools and departments in terms of both research and curriculum. There is a 3D printer in a department on our campus but the problem is- the department keeps it under lock and key and students only get access to that printer if they take a certain class within that specific department. Here in the academic library- we are available to everyone on campus- no lock and key, no special hours...we provide access to a much needed service. Even over the summer- we've had faculty from Engineering, Chemistry, and Art jumping in and working this service into their curriculum even further now that they have access to the production machine- it's a total win. Previously a number of students and faculty has been sending their files out to be printed at a rather high cost and turnaround time. This eliminates that and allows our community to prototype more quickly and more often. Chemistry has really gone far with this- one faculty remarked that this has changed the way he does research now. Rapid prototyping is critical. As for equipment that is more dangerous to use- I've worked closely with the local makerspace here in Reno, Bridgewire, and they've created a student membership. They have and are going to continue to do workshops for us here and they hold all kinds of workshops and events in their own space. Anything that may be considered a liability is done on their property and they have insurance. More recently, we are looking into partnering with the campus machine shop. Again- they are well suited to this kind of thing and take the necessary precautions. I see the library as a bridge between a lot of these resources- we communicate regularly with various groups to make sure students and faculty get whatever resources they need- whether that's an article, a book, a 3D printer, or access to a CNC machine. My interest is in getting what our community needs, so while I keep an eye out for how the laws will change in relation to these technologies, I focus on serving the users and building the community. It's been transformative here from when we were a building full of lots of print books with very few people at all to now where we have open collaborative space, 3D printers, button makers, poster printers, AR Drones, various software, etc....and a LOT more users. We've seen the highest numbers of users in this building that we've ever seen here. We have also heard from several professors from different areas in full support of what we are doing and praise the changes we've made here. At one point not too long ago if you asked me what would happen to this library, I probably would have said that it would be closed in the not too distant future; we've totally turned that around because we've embraced our community and given them something irresistible. The students graduating from here will have had experience with technologies and learning in an environment that encourages creating, which many other students across the country don't have access to. I think it gives our students an advantage in a number of industries where companies will be creating new kinds of jobs that we can't yet imagine. Our staff are the same existing staff that were here previously. No one is specially trained- everyone has printed on the 3D printer- including all of our student workers. It's fun, so it hasn't been a hard sell to anyone to make something and learn...which is pretty cool. We set up the 3D Touch printer ourselves- in fact the students busted open the box the second it arrived, set it up and started printing. I wasn't even in the building when that all happened- they took it on and I'm happy about that. The production machine we have - the Uprint SE needed setup from the vendor. He did a fairly quick rundown of how it all works and did the machine setup for us. Since then it's been going non-stop without much maintenance. Out of both of the machines, the hobbyist machine has needed more maintenance from us in terms of keeping it going well. The higher end machine has been invaluable in that it runs without lots of "care and feeding". We have a couple of different options available for 3D software and we have a number of students and student workers who are already well-versed in creating with these tools. We are asking them to teach others and give workshops- this works well as most of our students prefer to learn from other students in a casual way. Our staff may not be 3D experts but we are a learning organization and everyone jumps in when help is needed- we do our best and work through the problems- then share with each other when we learn something new. Most seem to learn best by doing and we do a lot. :) --Lisa ____________________________ Lisa Kurt Engineering + Emerging Technologies Librarian DeLaMare Science and Engineering Library University of Nevada, Reno phone: 775.682.5706 -- Emily Lynema Associate Department Head Information Technology, NCSU Libraries 919-513-8031 [log in to unmask] -- Emily Lynema Associate Department Head Information Technology, NCSU Libraries 919-513-8031 [log in to unmask]