Knowledge transfer through do-it-yourself - a 3D printing workshop for everyone

The Chemnitz City Library sees itself not only as a lending library for media and an extracurricular place of learning, but also as a lively cultural centre and attractive leisure meeting place. A variety of events and new programmes help to strengthen this profile.

This year, Chemnitz City Library is using the nationwide "Library Network" campaign week as an opportunity to focus on the topic of makerspaces. Over two days, on 24 and 25 October 2016, there will be numerous hands-on activities, presentations and lectures on the topic of 3D printing technology in the Central Library.

The programme is aimed in particular at beginners and those who are curious and not yet familiar with the technology. Visitors can get creative, try out the new technology and get ideas on what they can produce themselves with a 3D printer, including building their own 3D printer. If you have a little patience, you can print your own first three-dimensional workpiece layer by layer.

For two days, the city library will present itself as a place for experimentation, creativity and collaborative work.

In this way, the library teaches media skills, enables visitors to realise their own ideas with the help of hardware and software and brings people together. The extensive programme has been made possible thanks to the cooperation and support of Fritzsche und Steinbach Bürosysteme GmbH, PROFIL Bildungsgesellschaft mbH and FabLab Chemnitz.

Makerspaces are open, non-commercial spaces in which people work together creatively on physical objects. Public libraries are almost ideal places for this form of collaborative knowledge acquisition.

In many libraries, makerspaces focus on technical activities in which people work with materials that are not necessarily available to them outside the library. In a narrower sense, a makerspace can be described as the hobby room of the digital age. The tools are no longer saws and wood or scissors and fabric, but laser cutters and 3D printers.

The introduction of a makerspace is intended to create a creative "space" for the population that connects people and is available as a meeting place for all age groups with different interests. The makerspace offers a creative platform that supports the process of lifelong learning, teaches media skills and empowers visitors to realise their own potential with hardware and software.

Having already developed and implemented the new "learning space" and "gaming" concepts in the current year, which further strengthen the library as a place, the two makerspace action days are a first step towards getting to know the needs and interests of library customers better and gaining initial experience for future offers.

Despite the increase in virtual media use in Chemnitz City Library, the library is becoming increasingly important as a public, non-commercial place for everyone, a place of communication and a social space. The city library has a traditional range of media from all areas of knowledge, supplemented by a virtual collection. With 1,629,974 loans in 2015 (including 59,733 electronic downloads) and a stock of 283,725 media units, Chemnitz City Library is one of the largest public libraries in Saxony. Thanks to its user-friendly opening hours, the central library in the TIETZ is available to its users a total of 52 hours a week. It is an ideal location in Chemnitz city centre for developing new, additional educational and cultural services in addition to the traditional tasks of a library.

Library Network
"Netzwerk Bibliothek" is a nationwide library campaign organised by the German Library Association (dbv). (dbv), which focuses on digital offerings, services and contemporary event formats as well as current trends in the library landscape. For example: e-books, free Wi-Fi, e-learning, digital databases, internet-enabled computers, e-readers, e-journals and much more.

The campaign has been running since October 2014 until July 2017 and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and supported by the ekz Group and divibib.

www.netzwerk-bibliothek.de