Today: Mar 29, 2024

New printers stationed around campus

Victoria Bresnahan – News Editor

Ten black and white and two-color printers, complete with a new printing service, have been installed in new and various locations across campus.

Some new services include printing from a mobile device or personal laptop directly to the printers rather than through a web upload—although, this option is still available. Users can also email their documents to print@southernct.edu from their Southern email account to print at a printer.  In addition, copying and scanning functions are available at every device as well.

Nicholas Valsamis, director of support services, said in a phone interview with the Southern News, he did not like the old printing service and knew it needed to be updated.

“I wasn’t in love with old one,” said Valsamis, “it was a little older in style. So this new one has all kinds of cool stuff for our students to use.”

To better accommodate students, the new printers are stationed in more open locations such as the bottom floor of Morrill Hall, Connecticut Hall and across from the Bagel Wagon in Engleman Hall.

“I wasn’t a big fan of service meant for all students and the equipment is behind locked doors,” said Valsamis. “This turn around we said it can’t be behind locked doors. If departments want to offer printing in their lab rooms that needs to be funded through the department.”

Alexis Zhitomi, SGA president, said it was a process to pinpoint locations across campus that would be most accessible for students to access the printers.

“We opened up the conversation of where would students need printers,” said Zhitomi. “That is the main academic building, Engleman needed some, the library was obviously the most used printer on campus. Then we thought about the all different aspects that go into it and what type of students. So there is one in Connecticut Hall now for residential students.”

To determine how many new printers could be purchased, Valsamis said income garnered from student printing last year was examined.

“It is pretty much a no profit,” said Valsamis. “We have the cost of the lease for the Xerox and we set a little bit aside for the paper because that is not included in the service contract.”

Last year, printing for faculty and staff was at no cost. However, Valsamis said with addition of the new printers and its programs documents printed by faculty and staff could be charged.

“I couldn’t tell that all printing was academic in nature,” said Valsamis.

There is no rise in cost for students.

Valsamis brought all issues with the previous printers and their services to the Student Government Association (SGA) last semester. Valsamis said they discussed how many printers students needed, if the price to print could be increased and if faculty and staff should be required to pay.

“So I got to 12 printers on our current pricing, with no change to the cost to students, and faculty were asked that if they need to print for their academics that they go back to their departments,” said Valsamis, “but if they want to print for personal reasons then they can put money on their hoot look and print pay for print.”

While faculty and staff are allowed to use these services, Valsamis said he does not believe they will. He said there was some “kickback” from faculty about this change in the beginning, but there have been no conflicts with it.

The new service also allows for a “service and support” contract, meaning the vendor will arrive to the university within four hours to repair a printer.

“Last year when printers would break we would send one of our techs out and he would say it needs parts,” said Valsamis. “Then we would be waiting for the parts to arrive. Then we would be taking the printer apart in the middle of the day to get it fixed. I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Steven Chan, junior, and library IT desk worker for the past two years, said some issues workers faced were paper jams, paper running out and problems with the outdated services.

Chan said some issues with the new printers reside in technological issues with the swipe system.

“Everything will be fine,” said Chan, “but it will still say wrong pin or something like that.”

With the update of the new printing services, Chan said they were trained on how to troubleshoot possible issues. However, he said no training was provided for the old ones.

Last year, the university printed 1.3 million sheets of paper, said Valsamis.

According to an August, 2018 Printer Environmental Impact Summary, a total of 15,416 sheets were used in August, or 1.85 trees. In addition, it stated 195.8 kg?? of CO2 was produced and 12,258.3 bulb hours were used—this statistic is equivalent to the manufacturing energy used to create paper and shown as the energy consumed by a light bulb, according to the summary.

In an August 2018 Unreleased Jobs Paper Saving summary, a report that examines what environmental impact was avoided through print jobs that were not released, stated 4,562 sheets were saved, or 54.744 percent of a tree.

“Each year it has been going down,” said Valsamis. “the year before it was like 1.6. The year before [that] it was 2 million. Steadily over the years students have been doing less actual print because I think BlackBoard has a lot to do with it.”

Photo Credit: Victoria Bresnahan

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