Students were in for a surprise Monday morning when the previously free printing in campus computer labs became a thing of the past.
The university implemented StagPrint, a debit-card printing system that works through students’ StagCards. The system allows fulltime students to print 200 pages and additional printing beyond this would costs student ten cents per page.
“I think this is ridiculous,” said Kerri Rose ’05, ” I pay 34,000 dollars a year, you would think at least the paper would be free.”
StagPrint claims to be an “effort to promote responsible printing and to conserve resources by controlling laser-printing use, waste, and rising costs,” according to the library’s website.
Last year alone, Fairfield University consumed 2,250,000 sheets of paper, and over 400 toner cartridges. This cost the University $30,000.
Many students are less than pleased.
“I don’t understand how our university can be charging money for things when every year our tuition goes up and the lodging and food quality goes down,” said Brian Clark ’05.
Joan Overfield, director of library services, said that the library has been trying to put the StagPrint system into practice for two and half years. The library has been concerned with the growing problem of wasted paper from printing, which Overfield said has become “a problem at college campuses all over.”
Although the library does contain recycling bins, Fairfield’s Student Environmental Association conducted surveys for the library and found that an excessive amount of paper was being placed in both these, and trash bins.
Overfield also said the library recognized that there was a problem with not only students abusing free printing, but also with people from outside the university. People who were not part of the Fairfield University student body or faculty were using the printing labs for personal use.
With the StagPrint system, visitors can only print from the library’s Information Commons, and must purchase a visitor card. The visitor card costs $1 and after purchase a visitor can place money on it to be able to print. Visitors are not allowed in computer labs that require a card swipe for access.
When the library identified there was a problem, they surveyed over 100 universities and found that charging for printing is a major trend. Schools such as Boston College, Georgetown University and Harvard University all have systems similar to StagPrint. The typical paper allotment for students was 200 sheets.
The implementation of the StagPrint system was a joint effort from the library, Student Services, Computing and Network Services, and the Director of Purchasing. The university is using the same vendor that coordinates the laundry service on the StagCard. The vendor, CopyCo Macgray, installed part of the system, and the university installed the rest.
A Value Transfer Station, where students can use cash to add money to their StagCards has been added in the 24-hour computer lab in case students exceed the 200-page copy limitation.
To print using the StagPrint system, there is a four-step process. First a student pulls up the page they want to print on a computer workstation. They then save and label the document, so it can be identified on a print queue, which is a computer listing all the documents that are saved and labeled in the computer lab.
The student then goes to a “print release station,” select their document and swipes their card. The document will then print, the pages are deducted from the student account.
Students who are biology and business majors are going to be hit the hardest by the schools changes.
Stacy DeGabriele ’05 is a biology major who is frequently assigned to print out Power Point lecture notes to prepare for class. “I think it’s really annoying to have a limit on my printouts. I have to print out a lot of pages for class, so its not really fair that I would get charged because I’ll probably have to go over the limit.”
There is an expected period of adaptation to the new printing system, according to administrators.
Overfield said, “it’s expected that some behaviors are going to have to change. Everyone needs to become aware of being more responsible.” Studies have shown that campuses that implement systems such as StagPrint reduce their printing by up to fifty percent.
StagPrint is currently not running perfectly. Rose was disgruntled when she tried to print a document in a library printing lab Monday morning and her StagCard would not be accepted due to an unknown error.
Although the staff tried to be helpful with the dilemma, she said, ” I find it appalling that they haven’t gotten the system working yet when we need to print things for class.”
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