Printing costs

[Anne Kaay]

Hi,

My apologies if this question has been asked and answered but I did not find anything in the archives so am asking and hoping for some enlightenment.  Please reply either onlist or directly to me and I can summarize responses.  Thanks in advance!

Formerly at our library, we did not charge for citation printing from the catalog but only charged for printing of full-text journal articles and and any web pages.  The library computers do not have any Word Processing applications on them and are basically research stations.  Our campus computer center did not have the necessary resources to charge for printing so printing in the computer center was free for the students. The computers in the computer center do have word processing 


However, we are currently in the middle of a trial using the Pharos UniPrint system and consequently we charge for *all* printing.  This trial is also being implemented in our computer center and now students have to pay for printing there when it was previously free.

Naturally, some students have gotten quite upset with these "new" (at least in the computer center) charges and feel that some of the fees that they pay should entitle them to some free printing.  Basically, I've got a few questions:

1.  Is there any free printing in your libraries (e.g. citations from the catalog or from online databases)?

2.  To your knowledge, does your campus computer center charge any fees for printing? 

3.  Are any printing charges for students associated with a kind of "technology fee" so that students receive a certain amount of "free printing" per semester?

Thanks in advance

Anne