SPEC Kit 348: Rapid Fabrication /Makerspace Services · 11 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction Rapid fabrication technologies, or “3-D Printing,” to use the less accurate but more familiar term, have undergone rapid evolution and are now used for medical implants, prosthetics, teaching aids, infor- mation visualization, research on rare/fragile objects, architecture, art, and advanced manufacturing. These technologies are rapidly lowering a number of differ- ent barriers faced by researchers and others, barriers that had previously made it prohibitively difficult for most individuals, researchers, and organizations to manufacture objects without significant investment of time and money in training and equipment. Because of these advances, the complexity and range of ob- jects that may now be manufactured has increased precipitously, including easily customized items or precisely replicated physical objects, while the process by which these may be manufactured has flattened, allowing on-site or local manufacture and reducing lead time (in some cases permitting even just-in-time manufacturing processes). These technologies produce intellectual assets— sensor and digitization data, as well as models and methods—that are potentially valuable to other re- searchers for future reuse and replication. Moreover, these technologies offer the opportunity to create spaces (“makerspaces”) that facilitate research, col- laboration, information discovery and management, and a form of technical and information literacy. Strategic Relevance to Libraries In the last several years, the interest of libraries in this space has been growing rapidly. Fabrication tech- nologies and makerspaces are strategically relevant to research libraries for at least three reasons. First, makerspaces represent a unique use of li- brary space. The assessment and renovation of li- braries’ use of space has been recognized as a cur- rent strategic issue for libraries in general. As Joan Lippincott notes in Research Library Issues1, it is es- sential that library space assessment be informed by campus priorities related to teaching and learning, expanding beyond library-centric thinking to design proactive spaces that engage with student learning more broadly. Makerspaces offer a key potential op- portunity for such engagement, while creating spaces that align with the library mission, synergize with other services, and integrate staff competencies like information management. Second, libraries are increasingly engaging with data management. Digitization and fabrication tech- nologies both make use of and produce research data—data describing objects, models, and the sen- sor information collected from them. Makerspaces offer a clearly scoped locus for the integration of data management with other services and resources. Third, we are now seeing fabrication figure in- creasingly throughout the various stages of the re- search lifecycle, and there is a clear trend towards adoption in higher education generally.2 These tech- nologies may be used early on as part of prototyping for research interventions or to embed sensors for re- search data collection, or later on as part of analysis or research collaboration (e.g., by materializing models for examination and sharing). Further, libraries have a number of core competen- cies that are complementary to fabrication: • Fabrication extends the information lifecycle. Fabrication technologies make information