Individual printers v. Network printer

[Dan Lester]

At 11:28 AM 12/30/97 -0800, Jim Richards wrote:
>We use a networked printer in our word processing lab.  We are planning on
>setting up an Internet lab very soon and I am considering doing the same for
>one reason.  I know that most of our patrons are going to want to print in
>color so I want to set up a networked color laser printer instead of
having to
>deal with a bunch of inkjets.

Most interesting.  Either the Naperville Public Libraries, or else the
citizens of Naperville, must be pretty well heeled.  Actually, both will
need to be.  Have you checked out the cost of printing to color inkjets or
laser printers, or the cost of the color supplies for inkjets?

Also, even if you have a way of billing/collecting funds (assuming you
can't afford to give away all these color copies, of course), how are you
going to deal with the person like me who wants to get cheap printing of
black and white.  If you charge a dollar for a color print, and I only want
a page of black and white text, I'm not going to gladly pay more than a
dime for MY page.  I imagine one could develop a software solution for the
differential pricing and printing, but I've not seen one on the market yet.

I'll be interested in learning of your implementation of it and the issues
that arise.

cheers

dan

Dan Lester, 3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho 83716-7115 USA 208-383-0165
dan at 84.com   http://www.84.com/  (check out our 1997 holiday letter)

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