The Zombie Stack Exchanges That Just Won't Die
What steps should a library take to decide what tools you would provide? Is it pragmatic to open it to the public?
What are the staffing issues involved, or should it not be staffed? Is partnering with local people/organizations beneficial?
jimirings
Michael von Groenendyk, who helped set up a maker space at a Canadian university library was helpful enough to help me with similar questions and I've copied his reply below. I've also emailed him to see if he can answer directly.
"The minimum a library would need to set up their own Maker Space would be around \$1000 [£650]. 3D printers can be bought for as low as \$500 US now, a little cheaper than that if you are willing to put one together yourself using a do-it-yourself kit. Mst average hobby-grade 3D printers are priced the \$1000-3000 US range. You start seeing higher quality in 3D printers after the \$20,000 price point, but this is far too expensive for the majority of public libraries to afford.
For plastic filament costs (or what the 3D printer prints builds objects with), in my experience, having a hobby grade 3D printer printing non-stop 24 hours a day will use about \$60 worth of plastic over one month. The plastic commonly used with hobby-grade 3D printers is either ABS (Lego) or PLA (bio-degradable corn based) plastic. With higher-end 3D printers these costs easily triple. The costs of plastic filament increase with non-hobbyist 3D printers such as 3D Systems Cubify 3D printer, which force their owners to buy plastic filament from a fixed supplier.
Once they’re up and running hobby grade 3D printers do not involve that much staff time. Throughout a day a public library could expect to have a single staff member spend about an hour of time working wi their 3D printer. The problem with hobby grade 3D printers, though, is that they break down, and when this happens unexpectedly (and it will happen soon or later) this can quickly become a drain on staff resources. The time it takes to set up and learn how to use a 3D printer can be a time consuming process as well, typically requiring around 2 weeks of intensive work.
Many other building tools are featured in Maker Spaces besides 3D printers, such as laser cutters and computer numeric controlled (CNC) machines, which work much like 3D printers in that they can turn a digital 3D model into a physical object. Most of these machines are dangerous to operate, however, and are priced in the \$20,000-\$40,000 US range, and so are unsuitable for most public libraries."
I hope that begins to help.
About sixteen months ago I led the set-up of a MakerSpace at the Dalhousie University Libraries, and I've been working on this project since then.
For 3D printers, hobby grade printers range from \$500-\$4,000 US in cost. Then, if they're being used frequently, the plastic (ABS or PLA) will cost an additional \$100-\$200 US a month. A good source for hobby grade 3D printer information is Make Magazine's: Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing.
Higher end 3D printers start at \$10,000 US (such as Stratasys' Mojo printer) and run up to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The material costs are much more expensive too, and the 3D prints often require additional cleaning, most commonly by blasting them with compressed water.
The higher end 3D printers produce much better prints than the hobby grades, but they are much more expensive to maintain. 3D prints rarely fail on these machines though, a problem that will quickly turn into extreme frustration when working with hobby grade 3D printers. The 3D prints themselves are much more expensive too, in a large part due to closed 3D printing material sources (the big 3D printing companies such as 3D Systems and Stratasys have traditionally run a "Razor & Blade" business model for their 3D printing consumables). As such the higher end 3D printers would be more suited to a library that knows the 3D printers will be used by professionals such as architects or engineers. Otherwise, if they are just opening up 3D printing to a patron base not familiar with them, the costs of 3D printing with a hobby grade printer will be much more attractive, which has been my experience.
There are definitely staffing issues involved with having a 3D printer. Hobby grade 3D printers especially require a lot of staff time. There are always misprints, prints will fall of the build platform, plastic will get clogged, etc., and it can be very time consuming to fix and maintain these 3D printers, which again has been my experience with them.
Professional grade 3D printers run without much of a need for staff involvement, outside the cleaning process. I have worked with these quite a bit too, and I can say this from experience.
Professional grade 3D printers are also more enclosed and easier to open to the public. Hobby grade 3D printers are much more difficult to make publicly available. It is very easy to damage these machines, and very difficult to repair them. If a hobby grade 3D printer is made available it should definitely be in an area where staff can monitor it and ensure that patrons are not putting their hands inside of it.
By providing a 3D printer to library patrons, an important issue to address is 3D modelling skills. There's a number of models freely available on Thingiverse.com but to really have a makerspace, 3D design skills need to be promoted in some way. There are a few good, free programs available such as TinkerCAD and Google Sketchup, but this is a very difficult issue to overcome.
I would definitely recommend trying to partner with professional organizations in this. I have done a lot of work with CBCL Ltd. Consulting Engineers, who have been extremely helpful in providing additional funding. Then in return we are able to provide them with low cost 3D printing, and a better exchange of ideas between engineering students. There is a lot of interest in 3D printing technology and, in my experience, it has not been very difficult finding professional organizations willing to invest money into library makerspaces.
We have considered providing other makerspace tools outside of 3D printers, such as CNC machines and laser cutters, but it is difficult bringing these into a library setting due to noise and safety issues, and because of this they would need constant staff supervision. Right now we do have a laser scanner available that can work in relation to the 3D printer. The tools you can provide really depends on your space and how your patrons would want to use it. Arduino chips and other electronic components are also popular makerspace staples. Tools such as these definitely require a very tech savvy patron base though, that not all libraries are going to have.
Before deciding on what tools to provide patrons in a makerspace, I would recommend consulting with patrons directly, as well as talking to any local business that may also take advantage of this space, such as machinists or architects, who might also be able to provide additional instructional sessions.
To decide what tools to provide, consider a wide range of tools and think about why or why not you would want to provide them and for whom. I don't think it's in the spirit of makerspaces to focus too much on specific tools. Many people are caught up in the 3D printing hype and 3D printing is totally amazing, but consider whether it might be more useful to have other (potentially cheaper) tools. For example what about high-end sewing machines? Power tools? Electronics workbench ( soldering/de-soldering equipment, oscilloscope )? DIYBookScanner? A laser cutter may actually be more useful to more people ( and easier to teach ) than a 3D printer.
Buying a 3D printer and putting it in a room is not having a makerspace, imo. The tool choice should be driven be the demand of the community. If there is no community, start by forming one, then find out what tools the community wants.
Forming a community of makers first and then creating a space will also help you decide whether to have the space open to the public. You definitely don't want to have dangerous equipment out without at least a docent, preferably a maker, on hand to talk to people and teach them.
I'd highly, highly, highly, recommend reaching out to your local hackerspace ( hackerspaces.org ) and find folks with some experience. You might be surprised to find people there willing to volunteer to help you build your makerspace.
To summarize, I think libraries interested in pursuing makerspaces need to start by defining the community of makers they want to serve and reaching out to that community. I don't think it's valuable at this time for libraries to try to be some kind of free 3D-printing Kinko's alternative.