Scott Burgess does this “terrible” thing on holidays now. No matter where he is, he’ll always pop into the town’s library to check it out.
He’s the digital librarian at New Plymouth’s Puke Ariki, and says libraries are an “interesting space to be in” right now.
No longer are libraries just about checking out books, finding an old photo of your grandparents in the newspaper, or renting a DVD, now one can get a part to fix their campervan awning, or print figurines of their favourite film characters.
And all of it can be achieved using 3D printers. They were first introduced into Puke Ariki in 2018, and in South Taranaki libraries in 2017.
Burgess said it had been “encouraging” to see all age ranges come in and use the printers, with some of the designs being “quite cool”.
He described one man in his 60s who came in to learn how to use the printer. He came back…
