New Library Printing System May Save $12,000 Annually
A new printing system was installed in the UCC Library during spring break which could save the college about $12,000 annually. It is called the GoPrint Management System and is in place to help maintain student privacy and prevent further monetary and material waste that had accumulated with the previous system.
The new system claims to save the companies that use it over 20 percent in annual printing costs, and that would suggest about $12,000 in savings annually which would be used for other technology updates throughout the campus.
The GoPrint Management system cost around $7,100, provided from the tech fee budget. Kristi Carr, the ASUCC activities officer, predicted in an e-mail interview that because of such a large amount of savings, these first GoPrint stations should pay for themselves by the end of the 2013 school year.
Carr presented the idea for the printer system in a proposal to the Instructional Technology Fee Committee after student government heard of the system summer term. The decision to install the system in the library was made during winter term.
A new system for printing in the library has been necessary for a while due to the amount of paper waste. With a gate count of over 230,000 for the library last school year, use of the printing facilities was huge.
The GoPrint system is designed to stop printing copy waste, because instead of a print job being sent directly to the printer it will now be sent to the GoPrint Station first; because students will now have to again select what should be printed, they will avoid print job errors and prevent waste. This way, if two print jobs are accidentally sent out, a student is only able to select one to go through to the printer.
The system will also allow students to wait to send out a personal document to the printer until they are ready to pick them up, preventing other students from accidentally seeing their information.
Students worry that since the GoPrint station requires an extra step in the printing process this will slow them down during times of the year such as finals week when mass printing occurs.
However, library director David Hutchinson is confident that the GoPrint system will not provide any longer of a wait than the last system did. “By finals week, students will know not to stand by the printer. People had to wait in line for print jobs before, but not having to wait for unwanted print jobs now should save time.”
Considerations for future updates in the library with the GoPrint system already exist. If the system slows students down during finals week, another station could possibly be installed.
Currently the GoPrint Station has no way of knowing whether it is being used by students or not, and Hutchinson is hoping that in the future the stations will require students to input their student identification.
Hutchinson also heard talk about putting in a GoPrint station for the wireless printer used with the student laptops, but a system has not been ironed out for working with laptops outside of the UCC network.
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