If you aren’t sure about the Apple Watch and want to try it out, become a patron at the North Carolina State University Libraries. Students are borrowing the watch, learning how to use it, and sharing their experience in the NCSU Libraries News. Libraries are not just about books. They play an important role in helping students and the public learn about new technologies. Another example of this is in the field of 3-D printing and scanning.

One of the highlights of a trip to Florence, Italy in February was a tour of the FryskLab. Bibliotheekservice Fryslân, a library organization in the Netherlands, developed FryskLab, a mobile lab facility from a former book mobile. The goal of the FryskLab is to bring digital fabrication skills to primary and secondary school students. The FryskLab bus made the long trip from the Netherlands to Italy and then continued on to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France. The bus contains three 3-D printers and a laser engraving printer along with MacBooks and iPads to facilitate learning and making things. I could not resist using Doodle3D (WiFi) on an iPad and printing a 3-D image of Health Attitude. I just ordered the Doodle3D device and look forward to using it with the Taz 5 3-D printer.

See more about the exciting FryskLab project, sponsored in part by OCLC, here and on the FryskLab Facebook page.