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Caltech Library News

Welcome to the TechHub!

by Chris Daley on 2021-09-03T15:54:00-07:00 in Library News | 0 Comments




This fall, the Library is pleased to welcome the Caltech community to our new TechHub. Located on the first floor of Caltech Hall, the TechHub is a productive and creative space offering several Library services and resources. It is currently the home of our TechLab for 3D printing and the location for our technology lending program, an additional Caltech Archives & Special Collections exhibition space, and our retail partnership with Vroman’s Bookstore. It will continue to evolve as a makerspace for play and experimentation.

The Caltech Library TechLab provides members of the Caltech community hands-on access to innovative rapid prototyping technologies to support the Institute's research and educational mission. The new TechHub space will allow the TechLab to add additional 3D printers, workstations to prepare files for printing, a comfortable waiting area, and two dedicated post-processing tables where patrons can put the final touches on their completed prints.

The TechLab offers an entry-level introduction to fabrication technologies, eventually with the hope of adding paper, vinyl, and laser cutting tools to the current 3D printing equipment. Library staff members, including Ian Roberts, Paula Gaetos, and Olivia Ramirez—who TechLab users may recognize from past orientations and mediated 3D printing work done for students and researchers who could not be on campus this past year—are available for consultations. They can determine optimal settings for your project’s particular needs, and they can help print prototypes for review and testing before committing to higher-end fabrication. Previous experience with the equipment is not required, but first-time users will be required to go through a brief orientation to the lab before using the equipment.

In support of other tech pursuits, the TechHub also lodges our technology lending program , where the Caltech community can borrow computer and audiovisual equipment. In addition to short-term lending, Caltech's iPad Loaner Program provides iPads and Apple Pencils to students for online collaboration and course work during the 2021-2022 academic year. Priority will be given to new incoming students.

The TechHub features an additional exhibition space for Caltech Archives & Special Collections , which showcases physical objects as well as a digital display. The first exhibit, Gone But Not Forgotten , is an extension of Becoming Caltech , the Archives’ 2020 exhibit about how Throop University became the California Institute of Technology.

We’ll soon be sharing more details about our partnership with Pasadena’s own Vroman’s Bookstore , Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore. University Librarian Kara Whatley and the Vroman’s staff have curated a collection for Caltech, and Vroman’s entire inventory is available to order for campus delivery twice a week. The TechHub serves as a pickup location for those items.

TechHub Manager Ian Roberts is busy brainstorming ideas for other resources and services the TechHub can provide in the future, including a library of board games, a sewing machine, DIY repair toolkits, and possibly a 3D scanner. He hopes to eventually offer workshops in this “friendly crafting space for creative play.” When the campus fully reopens, stop by the TechHub and say hello.


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