Object Lessons: 3D Printing and Inter-professional Collaboration Between the Library and the Literature Classroom

Abstract

While the digital revolution has been readily embraced by the hard sciences, adoption by the humanities has been somewhat more delayed. A number of factors have prevented wide-scale inclusion of technology into humanities coursework including, but not limited to, a lack of training, resources or support for professional development. The new Makerspace at the Drake Memorial Library provided the chance to unite 3D printing technology, pedagogy, literary criticism, information literacy, and historical context into a children’s literature course at the College at Brockport. Students were charged to locate a single object from a work of children’s literature and to analyze its importance to the plot of the novel or the development of a character. Selected objects were then 3D printed by the library Makerspace. Students then met with a librarian to reinforce threshold concepts set forth by ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education through a unique gamified Harry Potter - themed lesson. Students were able to successfully synthesize the relationship between object and text, culminating in the display of their objects in the library along with their written assignments.