Individual printers v. Network printer

Tue Dec 30 19:43:04 EST 1997

Personally, in my humble opinion, I'd go for a network printer.  The main
advantage being that you only have to maintain one printer, instead of
30-some printers.  Now, the disadvantage of course is if that printer fries,
you're sorta out of luck, and your patrons get to wait till it gets fixed.
I think the first overweights the second reason though... As a technology
person for the library, I happen to be the one maintaining all this stuff...
Remember that lasers are much more reliable that deskjets usually too...
I've had tons of deskjets fry out on me, but am yet to see ANY hp laser
fry... Maybe we just don't have enough lasers for that to happen.

-vsd

-----Original Message-----
From: Michelle Morris <morrism at rocky.laman.lib.ar.us>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tuesday, December 30, 1997 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: Individual printers v. Network printer

>We have HP DeskJet 540s attached to each computer and have had for 2.5
>years.  We have only had one have a problem.  There are 14 for public use
>and since we have access to the Internet they get heavy use.
>
>That's my $0.02.
>
>Michelle Morris
>Computer Systems Support Technician
>Laman Public Library
>North Little Rock, AR
>
>On Tue, 30 Dec 1997, Jim Richards wrote:
>
>> Either way, color printing is going to be expensive.  As far as how we
are going
>> to handle the people who only want black and white copies, we're working
on
>> that.  My main concern is that the inkjets are not going to hold up.
Every
>> inkjet that I've ever owned personally or worked on within a company
(except for
>> the old HP ThinkJets) has died a grueling death after a very short period
of
>> time.  I have yet to have seen a good, heavy-duty, inkjet printer that
can take
>> the abuse for under $300.  Sure, you can buy a more expensive inkjet but
then how
>> can you justify spending $500 or more for each machine in the lab?  Maybe
it's
>> just me, but I just can see using a $300 inkjet for anything more than
home use.
>>
>> Jim Richards    Network Administrator
>> Naperville Public Libraries
>>
>> Dan Lester wrote:
>>
>> > 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)
>> >
>> > http://library.idbsu.edu/   http://cyclops.idbsu.edu/
http://www.lili.org/
>> > Sent me a postcard of a library yet?  You'll get something nice in
return.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>