Mason Library Pilots Print Authentication Fall 2011
From Irene Herold, Mason Library:
This fall, in response to cost saving measures and good environmental stewardship, Mason Library, with the support of ITG and a charge from the President’s Cabinet, are piloting print authentication in the pursuit of print management for our public printers.
In 2004 Mason Library received a grant from the President’s Council for a Sustainable Future at Keene State College to help pay for a print server to host print management software. Shortly after installation, the library started seeing a significant drop in the number of pages going to the recycling bins, and documented that over 500 reams of paper were not used due to canceled print jobs. In the last six years, however printing costs (toner, paper, printer parts, and printers) have more than doubled through consumption. The addition of a large number of full text article databases is one of the reasons for this increase.
Requiring authentication by the person printing will help not only manage the costs, but allow us to manage who actually has privileges to print. While we are a public institution and Mason Library is open to the public, we do not have the resources to provide free printing to public patrons. Four of our public workstations (first floor west wing) will be connected to a coin operated printer, so non-KSC patrons can still print, but they will need to pay per page. During the pilot, student accounts will be preloaded with a dollar amount which will “buy” 500 pages for them in the library. If a student runs out of pages, in the future they will have the option of purchasing more. During the pilot this fall they just need to ask and we will add a dollar amount to their account. As of August 26, the pilot was turned on in the library’s hands-on classroom 104, but only students can print from this room right now. As soon as faculty and staff can be authenticated it will be turned on in the rest of the library. Please assure your students that although the screen says each page “costs” 5 cents that they are not being charged anything for the first 500 pages. The software does not allow us to display pages instead of money.
As a reminder, no one has to print anything as articles can be emailed or saved to a flash drive/USB rather than printed. Also, the public scanners are available for materials in print and may also be saved to a flash drive/USB or emailed if the account can receive large files.
