Brother, can you spare a nickel?
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
 |
Starting winter term, Linn-Benton Community College will charge students 5 cents per page for black-and-white printing services.
On Jan. 4, software will be installed on 70 printers at LBCC and will require students to deposit money in a personal account online or at the business office before printing, according to Jorry Rolfe, a member of the library faculty and the pay-to-print committee.
“We acknowledge that this places additional hardships on students, as LBCC students can no longer expect free printing available to them in the computer labs,” stated Rolfe in a campus-wide email. “Yet, over the years, unlimited free printing has led to carelessness, wastefulness and high college expenses for paper and ink.”
In addition to irresponsible printing, Leighana Coe, Forum computer lab specialist, explained that the school has had problems with dual-enrolled students printing out their OSU homework at LBCC, the result of students trying to avoid OSU’s own pay-to-print policy.
Ann Adams, director of information services, said that a test was run one week last May to take a sample of the printing trends at LBCC. From the data gathered, they estimated that the college prints about 1,250,000 sheets of paper a year.
“Most schools, when they instituted pay-for-print, have seen anywhere from a one-half to one-third reduction in the amount of printing,” said Adams. “If we could cut it down to one million that would be great.”
According to Adams, the software to be used, Onecard by Heartland Payment Systems, is a “fully functional one card system.” Once the school has enough money, the campus ID card could be used to access campus buildings and make purchases around campus.
“Your students and staff only need to carry around one card,” states Heartland’s website.
During the week of Nov. 16, a free trial run of the software will be run in the Forum computer lab.
Klyphord Rost, a music major, feels that the pay-to-print policy is coming at a bad time.
“With tuition constantly increasing, aren’t they already getting enough of our money?” said Rost.
Josie Hubbard, a pre-vet student, feels that the policy is “reasonable,” and will keep printing “legitimate” and “school-related.”
Comment
Commenting is closed for this article.
