Jason Griffey - 3-D Printers for Libraries

Library Technology Reports

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Volume 50, Number 5

3-D Printers for Libraries

ISBNs: (print) 978-0-8389-5930-5; (PDF) 978-0-8389-5931-2; (ePub) 978-0-8389-5932-9; (Kindle) 978-0-8389-5933-6.

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Copyright 2014 Jason Griffey

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About the Author

Jason Griffey is the founder and principal consultant at Evenly Distributed (http://evenlydistributed.net), a technology consulting firm for libraries and education. He has written extensively on libraries and technology, most recently a chapter in The Top Technologies Every Librarian Needs to Know: A LITA Guide. His previous book, Mobile Technology and Libraries, is a part of the award-winning Tech Set series. Named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker in 2009, Griffey has written and spoken internationally on topics such as the future of technology and libraries, personal electronics in the library, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. Griffey is the designer and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open-source portable digital file distribution system.

Abstract

Library Technology Reports (vol. 50, no. 5) 3-D Printers for Libraries offers an explanation of the various types of 3-D printers, how they work, and the materials used. The Report describes a range of specific 3-D printing products appropriate for library use.

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Contents

Chapter 1

Abstract

Chapter 1 of Library Technology Reports (vol. 50, no. 5) 3-D Printers for Libraries explains the mechanical process of a 3-D printer. Author Jason Griffey raises a few library-specific issues and makes an argument for libraries to implement 3-D printing.

O ver the last two to three years, there has been an explosion of interest in 3-D printing in libraries. This has been driven by the falling cost of the technology and the rise in interest in interactive, creative spaces inside libraries (makerspaces or tinkerlabs). 3-D printing as a technology isnt new; its been available commercially for decades. But only in the last five years or so has the price for deposition printers, driven by dedicated hobbyists and the company MakerBot Industries, dropped to the point where they are within the reach of the average individual.

There are a number of reasons that libraries should be looking at 3-D printing as an addition to their technology services. The first is that libraries, especially public libraries, have often been a technological leveler for their communities. Libraries were the first place where many people came to print their rsums on a laser printer. (Its easy to forget how transformative high-quality printing was in the late 1980s.) They were also the first place where many people had an experience with the Internet, especially with the World Wide Web, in the mid-1990s. Going back to pre-computer technologies, the local public library was the place where someone could go and use a typewriter that was freely available. So libraries have a well-worn history of being places where new technologies can be seen and interacted with for the first time. 3-D printers are at the point now where the personal computer was in 1984; they are mostly a hobbyist pursuit, but they have a clear future.

That future is as varied as the objects these printers can create. There are a number of traditional mechanisms for creating things in plastic, ranging from machining and milling (subtractive manufacturing) to molding and vacuum forming. In most cases, these are optimized for creating a high volume of identical plastic parts, such as tens of thousands of action figures or hundreds of thousands of appliance parts. They are almost impossible to use cost-effectively if you want just one of something, and thats where 3-D printing shines. With a 3-D printer, you can create unlimited numbers of unique objects for the same price. Need a replacement part for a toy? No problem. And then when you need a doorstop or a speaker frame or something totally other, thats not a problem either. If youre making ten thousand copies of a thing, there are more cost-effective options. But if you need just one, there is no better option than printing it.

This flexibility is key to the uptake of the technology, especially in libraries. Each patron can design and create his or her own particular object. Kids can print new additions to the toys that they love and can create just about anything that they can imagine.

The simplest way to imagine a 3-D printer is that its a machine that makes bigger things out of smaller blocks. In some cases, the blocks are a powder; in others, they are melted plastic; and in yet others, they are an ultraviolet light-sensitive resin, but in every case its just a matter of large things being made from smaller substrates. A 3-D printer is a simple sort of robot that understands how to manipulate the raw material its working with in three dimensions rather than just two, as an ink-jet or laser printer does. This type of manufacturing is also called additive manufacturing, as opposed to more traditional subtractive manufacturing where material is removed from a larger sample to create custom shapes in a process like milling, lathing, or CNC (computing numerical control) machines.

Imagine that you take an ink-jet printer, and instead of printing ink, it extrudes hot plastic that cools quickly. Think of it like a hot glue gun, where the plastic is solid, then gets heated to a liquid state, and then cools again into a solid. If it printed this plastic onto a piece of paper, youd end up with a slightly raised design being drawn on the paper by the printhead moving back and forth across the paper (the X dimension) and the paper being moved through the print area (the Y dimension). Those of us old enough to remember the days when color printing was very expensive might have memories of hot-wax printers that did basically this.