Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Fab Labs At The Library: Community 'Makerspaces' Give Access To Cutting-Edge Tools, Pat Newcombe, Nicole Belbin

Media Presence

The Authors explore a new service that a handful of public libraries are offering their patrons -- multipurpose workshops for designing and creating objects. At the heart of these “makerspaces,” “fab labs,” or “hackerspaces” is a 3-D printer that creates an object based on a digital design by melting the plastic and extruding it to form the shape of the object it is printing. The Authors interviewed two library directors, Jeff Krull and Sue Considine, on their different approaches to implementing this innovative service.