Printer Fees

[Will Hires]

Laser printing (plain black ink) capability was introduced in the libraries
at the Ohio State University this past Fall. Cost was set at 10 cents per
copy. Other printing options such as dot matrix was not offered. What we've
found so far is that people have tended to take advantage of other options
such as downloading to disk or emailing documents as attachments to
messages rather than participate in printing as much as we might have
anticipated they would. Of course, maybe enough time has not passed to
fully assess the impact, but it is clear that printing volumes are tending
to fall short of that which was predicted. 

I'd be interested to know what charge you will impose for color printing
and if you will allow downloading to disk and/or other non-print options to
users. I suspect that, no matter what the cost, and I suspect it'll be
substantially more than 10 cents per copy, the actual volumes will fall
appreciably short of any projected amount.

Maybe an alternative is to add this type of service incrementally according
to the level of demand that actually transpires. 

Will Hires
Librarian
The Ohio State University
hires.2 at osu.edu
----------
> From: NFML at aol.com
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: Printer Fees
> Date: Friday, January 10, 1997 10:42 PM
> 
> 
> We are adding color laser printers to some of our Internet access
terminals.
>  They will have graphics capability and we expect heavy usage.  I have
been
> asked to find out how other libraries set print charges and if they
> differentiate between color and plain black ink printers.  I am
especially
> interested in hearing from public libraries, but any input would be
welcome.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> Nancy F. McLees
> East Shore Area Library