South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
3-D printers back online at libraries, but you won’t be able to print a gun
The 3-D printers at Broward County libraries can make the Scarecrow a brain and the Tin Woodsman a heart, but a broom for the Wicked Witch would be out of the question.
Not only could the broom be considered dangerous, but it’s not on the list of approved 3-D models available to be printed for patrons.
The library system shut down its 3-D printers in August after concerns were raised about the technology’s ability to replicate guns or other weapons. The county is now making the printers available again on a more limited basis.
Nothing, including guns, will be allowed to be printed that is “unsafe, harmful, dangerous, obscene,” the county’s new policy states. All printing will continue to be done by library staff.
Carol Russo, the library system’s assistant director, said the down time gave the system time to have a “policy in place that would address the needs of customers of all ages.”
The focus is on creativity, discovery and supporting students in the science, techonology, engineering and mathematics fields, officials said.
Library sessions about the 3-D technology could begin again as early as November, Russo said.
But people won’t be able to have just anything printed.
Instead of bringing in projects on flash drives, as had been done in the past, patrons will select what they want printed from an online service, Gale Interactive: Science. It has 59 science-related models that can be copied.
Nearly a third of the models are skulls: ape, cat, dog, dolphin, Homo Sapien, Cro-
Magnon, horse, kudu, owl, mammoth — not life sized — pig, pigeon, rabbit and rat, not to mention the dinosaur skull options for T Rex, triceratops, pterasaur, diplodocus and allosaurus.
Other models include a human brain, human heart, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, a corn kernel and a volcano, a science-project staple. The types of projects available could expand or change in the future if the libraries select a different provider.
Broward libraries have had 3-D printers for about four years, officials said. They’re at Creation Stations at the Main Library in downtown Fort Lauderdale, the Northwest Regional Library in Coral Springs and the Jan Moran Collier Center Library in Pompano Beach.
Miami-Dade County libraries also have 3-D printers, while Palm Beach County’s A human heart is one of the items Broward County library patrons can replicate with one of the library system’s 3-D printers. The heart is one of 59 3-D models available to patrons from Gale Interactive: Science.
do not. Miami-Dade library officials said most of the printing requests they receive are from teenagers working on school projects or wanting to learn about the
new technology.