Not to be bested by their Oceanic neighbors, Australia now boasts a community digital fabrication shop of its own. Core77 forum member sanjy009 recently posted a news item about the Innovation Lab at a public library in Adelaide, officially opened by Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood just three weeks ago.
Funded by the Adelaide City Council, the lab is billed as a space "to build digital literacy and give Adelaide's 'hacker' community a place to toy with technology." To that end, they've bought a brand new Makerbot Replicator and an UP Plus 3D Printer.
An InDaily article and video (below) declares that "technology that can put the tools of mass manufacturing into the hands of the average person has been made available to the community in a city library."
"To give the community the chance to work with cutting edge technology is a real coup for Adelaide," Yarwood said... The Lord Mayor said libraries were the natural home for places such as the innovation lab. "This is about libraries being at the edge of innovation," he said. "This is about libraries reinventing themselves and being hubs of technology, hubs of innovation, hubs of creativity."(more...)