Public Libraries Tinker With Offering Makerspaces 90
eggboard writes "Public libraries are starting to build labs that let patrons experiment with new arts, crafts, and sciences, many of them associated with the maker movement. It's a way to bring this technology and training to those without the money or time to join makerspaces or buy gear themselves. It extends the mission of libraries to educate, inform, and enrich. Many are now experimenting with experimenting."
What's (very) old is new again (Score:5, Informative)
This kind of thing has happened before. The ancient Library of Alexandria [wikipedia.org] was much more than a library. It was a government -funded research facility and think tank where many of the greatest minds of the ancient world worked. Granted that it was not a public library like those found in ancient Rome, it's not a surprise at all that public libraries would try to enter this space in at least some form.
Re:Ridiculous. (Score:2, Informative)
Is it me or is the maker movement based around a bunch of hispters patting themselves on the back for doing stuff humans have been doing for eons?
No.
For the first time, makers (prototype makers/modelers in my day when we did this in the snow - uphill - both ways!) don't have to use milling machines, lathes, foundries , molding machines and other assorted equipment to get forms they need. No machine shop access required.
A couple of thousand dollars for a 3D printer or free replaces hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment - and specific skills and training.
Machine shop skills are a time consuming skill and when you're keeping up with other technology and designing and inventing .... it's nice not to worry about machine shop skills.
NOW - if you want to mass produce your item, those machine shop skills (lathe, milling machine, foundry) will become well respected and needed.
Re:Ridiculous. (Score:4, Informative)
As a taxpayer I'd rather fund local libraries that get the masses off the streets, educated, literate, potentially productive and even entrepreneurial.
Except that's not what the libraries are doing. They don't deal with "the masses", and they don't create literacy to start with.
If I was going to cut bloated government bureaucracies that are not essential to the freedom or security of our nation, I'd start with the U.S. Copyright Office and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
That's nice, but the issue you seemed to be replying to was that tax dollars are going to fund the entrepreneurs who need to build prototypes of their products but don't want to spend the money for the equipment to do that themselves. You might consider that the people who would be making use of this service won't be the poor undereducated ones who never go to the library because they're too busy working to feed their families, but the richer better-educated people who are already up the chain and have ample free time to do this.
And you ignore the difference that the "local libraries" are funded by local tax dollars in local tax districts while the offices you want to eliminate are federal. Cutting either or both of the targets you want eliminated will do nothing to fund libraries.