Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago Public Library

This guide to the Harold Washington Library Center follows a July 2013 afternoon when a librarian fed plastic filament into a machine on the third floor and printed an object nobody had cut or carved by hand, the start of the library's Maker Lab. It traces the grant that funded three MakerBot printers, two laser cutters and a milling machine, and the staff who argued a library card should also open a workshop. Head to the third floor and listen for owls carved into the roofline on your way up.