ALYSON E. GROVE/ Arizona Daily Wildcat Manon Parise, a non-degree seeking student, works on the computer in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering building lab. The cost of printing in that lab, along with six other CCIT labs across the university, will increase to 10 cents beginning Monday.

CCIT labs to join libraries at charging 10 cents per page

Campus computer labs will charge a fee to print documents beginning Monday, CCIT officials said.

In a memo sent campuswide last week, Barbara Hoffman, associate director of the Center for Computing and Information Technology, stated that a 10-cent-per-page print fee would be applied to the center's seven open-access labs.

CCIT computer labs in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Shantz, Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and CCIT buildings will begin charging for printing as of April 1, as will labs in Gila and LaPaz residence halls.

Students who want to print anything out will need to pay by using their CatCard.

Joseph Park, a CCIT lab monitor in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Building, said abuse of the free printout privilege has been common in the lab. Park estimated an average of four reams - or 2,000 sheets of paper - are wasted every week by people who print something out and either leave it in the lab or throw it away immediately.

"One business student tried to print out a 500-page book," Park said.

He said that days when career fairs are held on campus are especially busy for printing documents and that some students print 300 copies of their resumes rather than making photocopies of them.

Park said students also regularly print out 30-to-40-page dissertations in the lab.

Peter J. Perona, executive director of CCIT, said the labs were originally going to switch to the pay-per-print system four years ago when the Main Library began charging, but the costs of administering the policy was too much in comparison to the amount of paper that was being used.

Since then, though, he said more people have begun abusing the printers.

Perona said CCIT decided to charge 10 cents to match charges at the Information Commons in the Integrated Learning Center and other pay-for-print labs.

He said the library recently upped the charge of printing from 8 cents to 10 cents after a three-year study of how much it costs to maintain the printers and keep them stocked with paper.

"We've kind of gone to school on what the library has already done," Perona said.

He said the system, which included CatCard readers and the software, costs approximately $50,000.

Perona said although the system will be installed, the policy isn't set in stone.

"It's a bit of an experience for us," he said. "Our prospect is to see how it is."

Chris Castle, lab attendant at the Electronic and Computer Engineering lab, said professors regularly require students to access Electronic Reserves for classes, which need to be printed out.

Because of the number of students wishing to print out the reserves, the ECE lab was forced to buy larger printers that could better accommodate the demand.

Castle said the older printers frequently crashed due to the demand from students printing out the reserves.

One student who was using the AME lab said the decision to no longer offer free printing was inevitable.

"I knew it was only a matter of time," said Rhonda Dwyer, a business management senior.

The Kinko's at 2607 E. Speedway Blvd charges 49 cents per page for a black and white printout of a document.

One student felt the university's price was too high.

"It's kind of a rip off," said Matt Vedal, psychology sophomore. "It should be included in the tuition."