Almost a year ago I wrote a post on this blog titled The 3 D’s of 3D Printing (Version 1.0). I’ve been meaning to catch up and post an update but I haven’t got around it until now.

This Saturday, our library will begin the following procedure with our 3D printer on The 2nd Floor of the Downtown Chattanooga Public Library.  This is sort of the Version 2.0 of the whole 3 D’s of 3D Printing idea.

Anyone who wishes to use a 3D printer must have a Chattanooga Public Library card in good standing, meaning that they must not have greater than $5.00 in fines and their registration must not have expired.

Anyone who uses the 3D printer will be charged $0.06 cents per gram of PLA plastic used. The amount of plastic used will be determined when the library employee who is working with the patron previews the 3D print.

The 2nd Floor 3D Printer is for ages 0-18 only.

Users will get a maximum 30-45 minutes per day to 3D print an object, as the 2nd Floor 3D printer is designed to be used as a basic introduction to 3D printing.

So why the changes?  Well, to be honest with you there were really no problems with the first version of the program to begin! It worked well. Kids, Tweens, and Teens got their assignment and they completed them when they visited the library.  Megan Emery and I made every intent to add more challenges to the program but….simply stated we just didn’t have enough staff time to make those other challenges happen.

Our summer at the Chattanooga Public Library is what really made us rethink this program. We were slammed with visitors to the library this summer (a VERY good thing) and we couldn’t really focus on getting each kid, tween, and teen updated on the program. Instead, we took an introductory “here’s the 3D printer, here’s Tinkercad and Thingiverse, you have this amount of time, have fun and we’re totally here to help” approach.  It allowed us to give the 3D printing experience to more of our community which is something we wanted to do.

Why the charges you ask? It makes sense for the library to find a way to keep income coming into the library so that we can purchase the proper amount of PLA plastic needed. 6 cents per gram is not a lot in the long run. Will it deter some of the community from using the 3D printer? Of course, as money always will deter people from doing anything. But we are taking the approach of “it’s a small cost that helps us keep this service here for you” with the community. It’s a positive and honest message that needs to be told.

So hopefully it won’t take me another year to follow up on this, but I hope this is informative for everyone who reads it.  And if you have any questions, you can always email me about it at justinthelibrarian at gmail dot com.

Have a wonderful day!