One note on this. All of the commercial printers I have seen from the plastic shooters to water cutters that can turn out a great car wheel have been enclosed boxes with safety systems. They are orders of magnitude safer than, say, a bunsen burner. Sure, these can be defeated by someone with intent to do harm to themselves or others, but I have seen some pretty dangerous books, as well, and I am not talking about intellectual content.
Cary On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 7:03 PM, Joe Hourcle <onei...@grace.nascom.nasa.gov> wrote: > On Aug 27, 2012, at 9:44 AM, BWS Johnson wrote: > >> Salvete! >> >> Can't. Resist. Bait. Batman. >> >> >>> Can anyone on the list help clarify for me why, in an academic setting, >>> this kind of equipment and facility isn't part of a laboratory in an >>> academic department? >>> >> >> I'd say that I hate to play devil's advocate, but that would be a patent >> misrepresentation of material fact. >> >> Conversely, could you please tell us why you think it *shouldn't* be at >> the Library? > > > I can think of one reason they shouldn't be *anywhere*: liability. > > When I was working on my undergrad, in civil engineering, the university's > science and engineering school had their own machine shop. > > Officially, you were only supposed to use it if you were a grad student, or > supervised by a grad student. > > Yet, there were a number of us (the undergrad population) who had more > experience than the grad students. (I had done a couple years of shop class > during high school, one of the other students had learned from his father who > worked in the trade, another was going back to school after having been a > professional machinist for years, etc.). > > So well, I know at least two of us would go down and use the shop without > supervision. (and in a few cases, all alone, which is another violation when > you're working at 1am and there's no one to call for medical assistance > should something go really, really wrong). > > And in some cases, we'd teach the grad students who were doing stuff wrong > (trying to take off too much material in a pass, using the incorrect tools, > etc. But I made just as many mistakes. (when you're in a true machine shop, > and there's two different blades for the bandsaw with different TPI, it's not > that one's for metal and one's for wood ... as they don't do wood cutting > there ... but I must've broken and re-welded the blade a half dozen times and > gone through a quart of cutting fluid to make only a few cuts, as I didn't > realize that I should've been using the lower TPI blade for cutting aluminum) > > > I admit I don't know enough about these 'maker spaces' ... I assume there'd > have to be some training / certification before using the equipment. The > other option would be to treat it more like a print shop, where someone drops > off their item to be printed, and then comes back to pick it up after the > job's been run. > > And it's possible that you're using less dangerous equipment. (eg, when in > high school, my senior year we got a new principal who required that all > teachers wear ties ... including the shop teachers. Have you ever seen what > happens when a tie gets caught in a lathe or a printing press? He's lucky > the teachers were experienced, as a simple mistake could've killed them) > > But even something as simple as a polishing/grinding wheel could be a hazard > to both the person using it and anyone around them. (I remember one of my > high school shop teachers not happy that I was so aggressive when grinding > down some steel, as I was spraying sparks near his desk ... which could've > started a fire) > > ... so the whole issue of making sure that no one gets injured / killed / > damages others is one of the liability issues, but I also remember when I > worked for the university computer lab, we had a scanner that you could sign > up to use. One day, one of the university police saw what one of the > students was doing, and insisted that we were allowing students to make fake > IDs. (the student in question had scanned in a CD cover, which was a > distorted drivers license looking thing ... if he was trying to make a fake > ID, you'd think he'd have started from a genuine ID card) > > As we've now got people who are printing gun receivers, there's a real > possibility that people could be printing stuff that might be in violation of > the law. (I won't get into the issue of if it's a stupid law or not ... this > is something the legal department needs to weigh in on). And conversely, if > you're a public institution and you censor what people are allowed to make, > then you get into first amendment issues. > > ... > > On a completely unrelated note, when I first saw the question about libraries > & maker spaces, I was thinking in the context of public libraries, and > thought the idea was pretty strange. I see a much better fit for academic > libraries, but I'm still not 100% sold on it. In part, I know that it's > already possible to get a lot of stuff 'made' at most universities, but you > risk treading on certain trade's toes, which could piss off the unions. Eg, > we had a sign shop who had some CNC cutters for sheet goods (this was the mid > 1990s), carpenters and such under the building maintenance, large scale > printing and book binding through the university graphics department (they > later outsourced the larger jobs, got rid of the binding equipment). > > I could see the equipment being of use to these groups, but I don't know that > they'd be happy if their lack of control over being able to make money by > charging for their services would go over well. > > I would assume that if you were to move forward with this, that you'd need to > identify the groups that could make use of it, how it might affect other > groups (eg, those people that charged for performing these services), and try > to get buy-in from all communities. You don't need a union picket line > popping up because they think you're trying to take their jobs.* > > -Joe > > > * I'm generally pro-union, but I'm still bitter about an incident where I had > a couple of hours of my time wasted at the San Francisco Moscone Center, as a > I needed our crate to pack up monitors, and I got it 1/2 way out of their > storage area before someone noticed me ... and he spent more time giving me a > lecture about how that was someone else's job (as if my intention was union > busting), when he could've just said they wanted to get the carpet up first > before rolling crates around ... then I had to sit around for another hour, > because he insisted on rolling my crate all the way back to where it was ... > and finally, he noticed me getting annoyed, so he called in someone to > deliver the crate, so they brought in someone with a forklift to move it the > 30-odd yards when it had its own damned wheels and if I'd have gone under the > curtain, it would've only had to go 5 yards) > > > [and um ... insert standard disclaimer about how I'm not speaking for my > employer, etc.] -- Cary Gordon The Cherry Hill Company http://chillco.com
