American Association for the Advancement of Science Pacific Division (AAAS-PD) presentation June 6, 2015
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•179 views
Erich Purpur and Amber Sherman presentation at the American Association for the Advancement of Science - Pacific Division at San Francisco State University. June 6th, 2015. Digital Preservation of 3D Objects in Academic Libraries
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (11)
Similar to American Association for the Advancement of Science Pacific Division (AAAS-PD) presentation June 6, 2015
Similar to American Association for the Advancement of Science Pacific Division (AAAS-PD) presentation June 6, 2015 (20)
More from epurpur
More from epurpur (9)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
American Association for the Advancement of Science Pacific Division (AAAS-PD) presentation June 6, 2015
- 1. Digital Preservation of 3D Objects in Academic Libraries Erich Purpur GIS Librarian DeLaMare Science & Engineering Library University of Nevada, Reno Amber Sherman ScholarWorks Librarian Albertsons Library Boise State University
- 2. Purpose - Why 3D printers are in libraries - How people are sharing their 3D models - Metadata for 3D objects - Other preservation and access issues
- 4. Why Libraries? -For many years libraries have provided expensive/rare technologies people can’t afford individually -Discipline Neutral -Enables Collaboration
- 5. What happens after the object is printed?
- 6. Sharing 3D Models and Scans
- 7. What information about these objects are sites collecting?
- 8. What should we be collecting?
- 9. What happens if we don’t have metadata standards?
- 10. Working Groups
- 12. Emerging Technology = Updated Versions = File Obsolescence “The Old Version Flickers More: Digital Preservation from the User’s Perspective” - Hedstrom, Margaret, Christopher A. Lee, Judith S. Olson and Clifford A. Lampe (2006)
- 13. Thank you Questions? Erich Purpur GIS Librarian DeLaMare Science & Engineering Library University of Nevada, Reno epurpur@unr.edu Amber Sherman ScholarWorks Librarian Albertsons Library Boise State University
Editor's Notes
- Our incentive to bring this issue to a larger audience is that Amber and I can’t solve this problem on our own. We need input from the community on what best practices should be concerning preservation of 3D printed objects and thoughts about how we should move forward. The purpose of our presentation today is to raise the issue of digital preservation of 3D objects, particularly in academic libraries.
- Erich - Lets start with a little background. Academic libraries have always been about providing forms of resources their campus community needs for learning, teaching, and research. In the past this was books but now new technologies are needed. This in particular includes students and faculty in science & engineering but also includes people in arts and a wide range of other disciplines. 3D printers have become one of the hot items to have. 3D prints come in many shapes and sizes and print in many materials including plastic, powder, metal, and even human tissue. Other technologies seen in libraries nowadays include laser cutters, Printed Circuit Board (PCB) milling machines, 3D scanners, and lendable technology.. As academic libraries see the value in these resources they are actively becoming a part of maker culture. Maker culture basically emphasizes do-it-yourself or hobbyist projects and can include things like woodworking, metalworking, arts & crafts, electronics, robotics, computer programming, etc. The physical space inside academic libraries is also currently changing. The emphasis is now moving towards providing collaborative learning environments where knowledge creation can occur and in the process academic libraries are regaining relevance on campus. (talk about photos from UNR)
- Erich - Like they have done forever, Libraries continue to provision access to emerging and expensive technologies; except now students and faculty on campus need different tools. Libraries are discipline neutral places on campus. Many discipline specific labs have their own tools but the problem is these tools are often only available to a small subset of people in that discipline. If you are not in the faculty member’s lab, you can’t use their toys. Futhermore, these technologies are now visible in libraries to people outside traditional “3d printing users” like engineers, computer scientists, physicists, etc. At UNR we have seen huge interest from people in the arts and humanities as well. Because you have people in many areas bumping into each other, collaboration happens. (example?)
- Amber: Erich mentions the maker culture and a big part of this is also sharing what you’ve made. So after you design your model and send it to the library to print, many people choose to share their objects by uploading them to a website to show what they’ve accomplished and/ or to allow others to download and remix and print at their institution.
- Amber - And there are quite a few websites that make this really easy like thingiverse and sketchfab. Sketchfab has over 300,000 objects, thingiverse has over 100,000 uploads. Organizations like NASA and NIH and museums are also sharing their 3D models with the world. While these sites are good for uploading and sharing, they aren’t necessarily focused on long term preservation and access or organizing based on traditional library standards. Also, these websites, serving as the repositories for 3d models are 3rd party providers. As users design and print 3D objects, these new forms of scholarship need to be preserved and these popular websites don’t really make any claims to permanently provide access to the objects or describe them the way catalogers might.
- Amber - We took a look at several of these sites to see what information or metadata is collected. The table on the left shows Dublin Core elements and checkmarks indicate if there is some field which could correlate with the DC term. The table on the right shows other descriptive fields available. The checkmarks indicate if there is a field available to input this information but very little is actually required when uploading, and most of the fields are not sortable.
- Amber: We think the current practices fall short compared to traditional library cataloging standards because they are not focused on long term preservation and access or the re-printing of objects. Looking at what websites are collecting and using what we know about 3D printing, Erich and I started putting together a list of attributes we think would capture information relevant to current users and also for long term access.
- Amber: All of the websites we looked at had a place for comments and we pulled these from a file uploaded by the British Museum. As you can see, when you aren’t including information about the models that would allow people to reprint, you start getting questions. While it might be ok now, people probably aren’t going to continue responding forever. Also, the comments aren’t always searchable, so even if an answer is given, if it’s not included in the metadata, you won’t be able to search based on information you need - for example printer type.
- Amber: As Erich mentioned, 3d printing is an emerging technology and with that comes a lot of new standards and policies. We think having the library community adopt a metadata standard is important but there are many groups working on other parts of 3d printing education, preservation and access including: NIH 3D Printing and Modeling Special Interest Group; an open licensing system for 3d printed objects; ALA has released several whitepapers and webinars on all aspects of 3d printing in libraries; the makerspace community is a good mix of librarians and others who discuss ideas related to this technology; a group out of Cornell are working on a new open source file format for 3d printing.
- Erich - So - not exactly the end of days if in 10 years a researcher can’t access a 3d printed iphone case, but libraries should position themselves to create frameworks to ensure we stay on top of the issue and don’t have to go back and figure out how to do this after files are already inaccessible.
- Erich - A good example of this is video games. An example of this is an article published in 2006: “‛The Old Version Flickers More’: Digital Preservation from the User’s Perspective.” Many of us had our favorite arcade, Atari, or Nintendo game as a kid and wish to relive that experience. Video game emulators are available which allow the user to play the game on a newer console but quite often it just isn’t quite “right.” Sometimes the timing isn’t the same, modern controllers don’t offer the same experience, etc. So even though you can play the game today, it isn’t what it used to be in the arcade at the mall. Also, emulators are often created by individuals as side projects or hobbies and then abandoned. The same thing applies to today’s 3D printed objects. Unless we preserve the essential characteristics of these models we will be unable to recreate them in the future. Additionally, this scholarship and worth preserving for the future. However, libraries have no control over 3rd party commercial providers like Thingiverse and Sketchfab and have no influence over their preservation standards. What if one of these sites ‘wins out’ over the other and shuts down - who will manage the 400,000+ files (growing exponentially)? Even if they are properly saved, backed up, if the right metadata isn’t used, we won’t be able to organize and find files. -mention .stl file is aging. New file formats on the way
- Erich- In conclusion. Our incentive to bring this issue to a larger audience is that Amber and I can’t solve this problem on our own. We need input from the community on what best practices should be concerning preservation of 3D printed objects and thoughts about how we should move forward.