2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Printing Press Renewal: Partnership Between Engineering Design and the Libraries

Presented at Engineering Libraries Division (ELD) Technical Session 5

The [university library] is home to a Chandler & Price printing press, originally built in 1885. Unfortunately, this press was not whole or fully operational when it was acquired by [university library] in the 1970s. Among its defects, the press lacked a foot pedal to power the press, a functioning rotating ink plate, a chase for holding the type in place, and the pin that keeps the large wheel turning in time with the gears that lead the machine to function. Members from the [university library] Historical Collections and Reference and Instruction teams and the Director of Engineering Design from the School of Engineering partnered with undergraduate design students for a restoration collaboration. Over the course of multiple semesters beginning in Spring 2025, design students developed solutions to return the Chandler & Price press to various stages of function, improving the continuing ability of the [university library] faculty and staff to use this machine as a teaching tool. This ongoing project provides students with the opportunity to collaborate with stakeholders not normally consulted for traditional engineering design projects, such as museum and restoration experts. This also requires the students to not only use their traditional CAD skills to create first of their kind 3D models for this machine, but also to document their design process in ways that can be shared through various advertising media for the [university library].

Authors

Dr. Ashley S McGuire http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1957-3135 University of Alabama at Birmingham [biography]

Ashley is the STEM Librarian for Engineering & Chemistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She enjoys working with students, staff, and faculty to enhance everyone's learning and access to information, for both scholarly and personal pursuits. The Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) is a particular passion of hers, which is reflected in her work in co-developing and co-instructing the graduate Technical Communication for Engineers course at UAB.
Margaret W. Balch http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5592-5575 University of Alabama at Birmingham [biography]

Margaret W. (Peggy) Balch received her Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) and Master of Arts in History from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She is an Associate Professor and the Curator of the Reynolds-Finley Historical Library at UAB Libraries. Her responsibilities include the management, preservation, exhibition, interpretation, and development of a collection of over 24,000 rare books and manuscripts pertaining to the history of medicine, science, and health care dating from the 14th century through the mid-20th century. She regularly utilizes historical materials for instruction and research support to students, faculty, and visiting scholars.
Anna Kaetz University of Alabama at Birmingham [biography]

Anna Kaetz is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Digital Strategy and Metadata Librarian for the Reynolds-Finley Historical Library of UAB Libraries, where she has assisted with the expansion of the virtual presence of the library and collections for over three years. She received her master’s degrees in Library and Information Science from the University of Alabama and in History from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her areas of interest include exploring emerging technologies in library exhibitions and pedagogy; using descriptive metadata to diversify special collections; and to support the physical and digital preservation efforts of rare materials.
Dr. Timothy M Wick http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8922-0939 University of Alabama at Birmingham [biography]

Dr. Timothy Wick, PhD is a tenured Professor and Director of the Engineering Design program the School of Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The engineering design program provides engineering students formal and informal opportunities to practice hand-on, real world design/build project experiences by matching student teams with external design project clients. Dr. Wick is the Founding Director of the School of Engineering Bachelor of Science in Engineering Design degree program. The ABET accredited program offers depth in engineering design, innovation and project management and breadth in an engineering discipline of interest to the student through an engineering minor. The program includes a 15-hour engineering design, innovation, and product development sequence that incorporates hands-on, project-based experiences throughout a curriculum to help students develop and practice these skills. The program trains students to be a design engineer with an integrated skills set across product development, project management and engineering problem solving to create functional and elegant products and processes. Dr. Wick is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a member of the American Society of Engineering Education. Dr. Wick received his B.S. from the University of Colorado at Boulder and his Ph.D. from Rice University, both in Chemical Engineering.

Download paper (900 KB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session