SPEC Kit 348: Rapid Fabrication/Makerspace Services · 67
as libraries are already familiar with the storage and loan of items what level of expertise would library staff need to
provide this service and potentially train users.
I see the role of rapid fabrication and makerspace services in the future of research libraries as something that is needed
and will be required by the students for them to succeed in their academic work.
I think teaching critical making and design skills will be more important than the access to the technology, esp. as the
printers get cheaper and easier to use. I feel a lot of pressure to include 3-D design in our workshops. I think this will
also be important for getting non-engineering students using the technology and seeing a need for the technology as
part of their academic research and student experience.
I think the library can play several key roles in supporting digital scholarship and design learning. The primary campus
fabrication and makerspace facilities will, for the most part, not be in academic libraries. Rather, academic libraries
will offer collaboration and meeting spaces for students and faculty, information and literature review services, design
software and hardware, visualization and data analysis tools, and overall project planning and support and services.
It has a future but should not be a major focus into the future since the technology will become more integrated into
early education and people’s lives.
It will continue to grow.
It will potentially have a similar role that “regular” printers and scanners currently have in research libraries.
Libraries are idea spaces, and makerspace technologies foster creativity and give research options to all disciplines rather
than just those in the sciences, engineering, or architecture. I hope that libraries move away from 3-D printing as a
Kinkos-like service, and toward conceptualizing fabrication as a tool to investigate, interrogate, and learn by doing.
Libraries are more and more about user-generated content, whatever the content type. We are platforms of discovery,
empowerment, and growth. Makerspaces will be crucial to viability of research libraries, as our ways of acquiring
knowledge are shifting to include hands-on technical and design creation. Integrated approaches to knowledge are
crucial if research libraries want to survive.
Libraries have always served as community hubs for participatory and collaborative learning, providing shared
resources that promote personal growth, learning, and exploration. Over the last two years, libraries have become
a space to house, develop, and promote the maker movement, which is a growing community of individuals and
groups who devote their time to designing and building rather than just consuming. The maker movement shares the
library’s devotion to the exploration of ideas and the development of skills and knowledge using shared resources and
expertise, but with a more visible emphasis on creativity and hands-on learning. The trend in developing digital media
resources within libraries and offering related programming is currently on the rise in academic libraries as universities
recognize how shared access to and training in emerging technologies can benefit learners. By providing resources
that are accessible to the entire university community and pairing those resources with the expertise of information
professionals, academic libraries are well positioned to support maker activities, many of which allow students to
develop the 21st century literacies, like digital and spatial literacy, that are vital to student retention and success, post-
graduate career development, and lifelong learning. We will see makerspaces in academic libraries moving from a trend
to a core service.
Makerspaces and fab labs are the next steps in active learning and in presenting scholarship. Makerspaces allow
student learners to engage in learning by doing and hold the potential of a new form of scholarly communication. From
videotapes to CD-ROMs to Internet access to color printing, libraries have always embraced new technology quickly in
order to provide open and equal access, and makerspace is the next in line.
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