Hi,

 

We are a private liberal arts college. The library is open for public use. We have two public terminals, which they have to show ID for, and can only use for an hour per day. They can print to a smallish B&W printer near the Research Desk. We don’t charge for printing, we just tell people not to abuse the privilege. Since the printer is close to the librarian on duty, and it’s not very fast, patrons are probably a little choosy about what they print.

 

Copying is also free. As they have to do the labor themselves, few patrons are going to make massive amounts of copies, at least with print books.

 

The college doesn’t charge students for printing/copying. We were told by The Powers That Be that it would be too much hassle to put a system in just for public patrons at the library.

 

(The college uses the PaperCut system and went from a few high-volume printers to more medium-sized printers. This has reduced excessive printing, broken printers, and overall frustration.)

 

In the 11 years I’ve worked here, we’ve only had one patron really abuse printing privileges, that I’m aware of. He was trying to print web pages that were in a non-Roman alphabet. Some driver incompatibility resulted in reams of paper coming out of the printer with a few lines of garbage characters on each page. He got banned, but more for his surly attitude than wasting the paper.

 

Back in the day we used to charge 10 cents per page for printing and have them pay at the Circulation desk. We had the separate old copiers with the attached doodads that took money or scanned a card that had money loaded on it. Those days are long gone. Almost all our printers are now copy/scanners as well, and none of these machines can take money.

 

Diane Westerfield, Electronic Resources & Serials Librarian

Colorado College, Tutt Library

diane.westerfield@coloradocollege.edu

(719) 389-6661