University libraries will begin limiting students’ printing starting today to cut down on waste and encourage more responsibiliy, library administration said.
The new policy sets a limit of 500 pages per student for each semester.
Each student will be credited $25 for the semester through their Cougar1 Card, which at 5 cents a sheet works out to 500 pages, and each time students use their cards to print a document their remaining total will be displayed on the printer.
"This came up responding to the students," Dean of University Libraries Dana Rooks said. "We get a lot of comments from the students about a lot of wasted paper."
Rooks said some individuals would print an entire textbook on the library’s printers but take only a few chapters and abandon the rest. Although the paper is recycled, the excess printing also resulted in wasted toner and increased wear and tear on the machines, she said.
"It’s not good fiscal responsibility if we’re allowing a lot of waste to happen," Rooks said.
Rooks and Assistant Dean for Public Services Barbara Kemp also noted that students’ documents will be re-printed for free if problems such as low toner or paper jams occur, and that the 500-page limit at the libraries is separate from page limits at other labs on campus.
Once their limit is reached, students will be charged 5 cents per single-sided and 7.5 cents per double-sided page printed. The new system will also completely do away with free printing for the general public.
Library staff members are also available to help students maximize their pages by printing on both sides when feasible or printing only the necessary selection of a document.
The default is set to single-sided printing to minimize problems with paper jams on the printers, Kemp said.
"We do ask people to watch their print job to make sure that they’re right," she said.
The choice of 500 pages as the limit was reached by averaging the number of pages printed by individuals during past semesters.
"Like 90 percent of the printing done by individuals was 500 or fewer pages per semester," Rook said. "If this doesn’t work, we’ll keep looking for something…. We’re just trying to find a compromise."
Once a student approaches the end of his or her printing limit, Kemp said, the computer will display a notification if the student attempts to print a job that is larger than the remaining pages on his or her limit.
Although the library print management system is the same as the one used by the Central Site Computing Center, located in the library basement, the page limit accounts are monitored separately, so total printing in one lab doesn’t affect total printing in the other.
At the computing center, students can pay for additional printing using the flex account on their Cougar1 Cards at 1.5 cents per single-sided, black and white page after they pass the center’s 503-page printing limit per student.
Some students, however, are concerned they’ll end up paying for required class material that used to be printed for free.
"I think it’s too small- class lecture notes are almost 100 pages," pre-pharmacy freshman Kyejeong Sim said as she waited for a printer in M.D. Anderson Memorial Library. "I think it should be on the tuition so everyone can have unlimited printing," she said.
Biology students Alyson Quintana, a sophomore, and Brionna Minott, a junior, said the limits will especially hit math and science students.
"Every science class is pretty much PowerPoint based," Minott said, and many professors require that the presentation be printed and brought to class. "I think last year was just fine. I don’t know why they changed it."
Quintana said the printing costs should not be added to the charges already levied on students to attend the University.
"We shouldn’t have a limit, why should we pay for printing?" she said. "We’re already on a budget, and now we have to pay for paper."
Over-limit printing at the Information Technology lab is paid through the Cougar1 Card flex account, officials said.
Rooks said the library printing system will mirror IT’s practices.
Excess printing totals will be monitored through students’ Cougar1 Card, but Kemp said she isn’t sure if it will be through the flex account.
Nutrition junior Joy Peters, however, said she hasn’t had a problem with limited printing on campus.
"I think there’s plenty of pages," she said.
The library was one of the last computer labs on campus to implement a printing limit – the School of Communication’s Technology Center computer lab began posting a 250-page printing limit last year, the Writing Center sets a cap of 150 pages and engineering students have a 1,000-page limit in their computer lab. Limited-printing enforcement began about five years ago at the Writing Center and has been progressively implemented at other labs.
Combining several printing facilities, most students still have a total of more than 1,000 pages of free printing for the semester.The computing center increased its printing limit to 503 pages per semester this summer. A limit of 138 pages was implemented about three years ago at the IT lab for similar reasons as the library’s new limit, and the maximum number of pages has increased over time, Information Technology Director of Academic Technologies Sara Baber said.
"People were reckless. People would just print and leave huge print jobs," she said. "It just seemed to us to be very wasteful."
Since implementing the system, the staff of the computing center has seen a marked decrease in waste, Manager Thang Doan said, though the center has not calculated specific cost or waste reductions.
Ultimately, Doan said, the limit has taught students to be more careful when using University resources.
"We want students to learn how to control their printing," he said. "After a few years, we’ve found that students have good behavior on how to control their printing."
Rooks said the library is currently not expecting to generate any income from the new system, as they are unsure if the waste reduction and payment for extra sheets will cover the costs of the equipment and software licensing purchased to manage the libraries’ printing.
Kemp said that any money that does come in will be re-invested into the libraries’ resources to provide more materials and services for students.
"It’s something new to get used to, but in the long run it will improve things for students," she said.
Library officials said they remain open to student input regarding the new printing limits.
