Thursday October 4, 2001

Pages would cost 10 cents each in all computer labs, officials say

CCIT is considering installing a system similar to the Pharos pay-for-print system that the UA library uses in all their facilities.

With the installation of pay-for-print, the Center for Computer and Information Technology will be able to offer the popular e-reserve printing services, Brabant said. The price will be consistent with the 10 cents per page charged by the UA library.

Joe Brabant, principal support systems analyst for CCIT, said he hopes the system will be installed during winter break of this year.

"Right now the system is broken," Brabant said.

The most pressing problem is the printing of electronic reserve documents, something that the printers can't handle, Brabant said.

CCIT has not been able to offer e-reserve printing in the past because of the cost of new printers, paper and toner.

According to CCIT figures, they have paid twice as much for toner in the last three years because the number of classes using e-reserves has grown.

Brabant said that since 1999, the amount spent on paper and toner combined has increased from $19,000 to $47,000.

According to a press release from the Electronic Reserves Team at University of Arizona libraries, the computers sometimes freeze while printing e-reserves because when they are put into the online library, they are saved as PDF image files, a format that printers have trouble processing.

The printer driver, type of Internet connection and Internet software can also complicate printing if they are not compatible.

Cheryl Neal of the library's materials access team said that while the library and CCIT can institute a pay-for-print system for all of their labs, each departmental lab is separately run and will make its own decision about whether to institute pay-for-print.

Many of the computer labs on campus will be using a pay-for-print system like the libraries' in the coming spring semester, Neal said. The largest CCIT computer labs are those at La Paz Residence Hall and the Engineering building.