I wonder if, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press in 1436 in Germany, he could imagine that someday, in the year 2005, the average college student would be using a printer so they could carry around 20 pages of useless information because there was one paragraph that mentioned something of significance. He probably could not conceive this idea and was more concerned with the bubonic plague making a comeback.
As a college student, have you ever thought about how much paper you use a day? It was such a thrill to come to college and be able to print anything whenever I wanted for no charge and use a printer that seemed quite flawless. However, this carefree period only lasted for one semester and then I was expected to pay when I printed out 40 pages.
Let us begin with a brief history of the Pay-for-Print journey. Pay-for-Print was instituted in January 2003 because printers, at the time, for the UR Libraries and Information Technology Services simply could not keep up with the student demand. ITS and library staff members were equally frustrated at the staggering amount of toner and paper being wasted. According to research compiled, there is an average of 14,000 sheets of paper found in the recycling bins per week at ITS.
The Pay-for-Printing system was implemented in order to provide better quality printing for the students and faculty. Systems like this can be found on many campuses – this means we were not alone in being wasteful, tree-killing vagrants. So why was the original charge raised to $0.10 per sheet?
Over the summer, it was decided that because the new printing system was so expensive to maintain, the print per charge had to be raised to a level that would help cover the actual cost of printing.
“The library and ITS absorbed the cost of all student printing for those first years, but it has now just become too expensive for us to continue to subsidize student and faculty printing to this level,” Dean of River Campus Libraries Ron Dow said.
The raise in charges was also much more difficult to deal with after the school stopped giving us money for printing.
“I figured [printing] was raised for financial reasons and not just to screw us over,” senior Rebecca Kowaloff said. “It would be quite nice if they still gave students $10 except, with these rates, that would not last very long,” Kowaloff vented.
Other students feel the same.
“Our tuition already went up last year,” junior Teresa Oeinck said. “Doesn’t that cover the cost of paper?”
The loss of double-sided printing discount has also created a commotion among students, and the fact that most professors at UR do not provide paper copies of course reserves.
“[Students] used to save money by printing double-sided pages,” senior Giuliana DiMambro said. “Now there’s no incentive for students to conserve printing paper.”
Other students are not aware of the increased cost.
“Most freshmen aren’t aware of the change at all,” freshman Jon Lauden said. “But even so, two cents doesn’t make a big difference to me unless I’m printing an e-book or something.”
What does the future hold for students? Some are already weary.
“Students are also concerned about future raises,” ITS Center student consultant and freshman Rachel Meegan said.”These concerns are voiced at the desk on an increasingbases as students slowly find out about these higher prices.”
The implementation of the charge is with good intentions, though for poor college students, we will never be pleased when asked to pay for anything. The importance of a single piece of paper is astounding in today’s society. Maybe we should just go back to using stone tablets and carving out our words like they did in biblical times. I mean it worked for Moses, with a little help from God.
Lepore can be reached at mlepore@campustimes.org.
