iPrint: staying under quota

Students who have visited UB's libraries in recent years remember when print jobs could take hours or even days. Thanks to the institution of IPrint this past fall, print outs now take a fraction of the time, and in some instances, merely minutes.

iPrint has been a controversial addition, however. While some love the program for its quick turn around time, others dislike it because there is now a limitation on student print jobs.

Students are allocated a total of 650 pages for the fall and spring semesters, an amount determined after careful research of student and faculty printing trends. The print outs are paid for by the technology component of the required student comprehensive fees.

With a comprehensive student fee amounting somewhere in the $800 range per semester, many say this is unfair compared to the unlimited print outs that were allowed in the past.

"The printers themselves are running a lot faster than they used to," said Rick Lesniak, director of academic services and computing and information technology. "The turn around is usually less than ten minutes."

Lesniak believes the introduction of iPrint was necessary to meet student's growing needs. Printing was at its worst during the 2003-2004 school year, with over 5 million pages printed.

"Every page has a cost, and the costs were skyrocketing," Lesniak said. "We would put in a new printer and just use it to capacity. Putting in new printers didn't help."

Lesniak estimates UB spent between $100k and $200k for the software necessary for the iPrint program, and believes the investment was worth it.

Jessica Walker, a freshman occupational therapy major, believes the iPrint limitations are unfair. Last semester she found herself dangerously close to her print out limit.

"I go at least once a week to print things," Walker said. "I don't think it's fair. For a lot of my classes, we have to print out outlines for my notes and it's a lot of pages."

After students like Walker ran out of money in their iPrint purse last semester, Lesniak and his associates decided to research trends in student's print outs to see if increasing the print out allocation is necessary.

"You always have the ability to print from campus cash or by buying another card from the library," Lesniak said.

Renee Mancuso, a freshman occupational therapy major, doesn't think still this is fair.

"You have to pay for each course. Books are really expensive. By the time everything happens, it's just way too expensive," Mancuso said.

According to Lesniak, this should be a burden met by individual departments to meet student's needs. A common complaint from students is that they are required to print out a large quantity of materials from their classes.

"We follow up with the department. Why isn't the department printing and copying materials for these students? Why isn't a course pack being used?" Lesniak said. "Now we're communicating with faculty and departments, and saying they need to be cognizant of what they're asking students to print out."

Lesniak explains that iPrint was implemented as a service to benefit the students, not as a way to limit them.

"Some people think we put iPrint in to control costs. That's not the case," Lesniak said. "The previous service was a bad service. It just so happens we're able to control costs."

Students currently complain that they don't have access to residence hall cybraries for printing at all times. Lesniak and his associates spoke with the University Residence Halls Association last fall to discuss resolving this problem.

iPrint affords UB the ability to implement a program in which students can release their print jobs and go pick them up at any time, day or night, by swiping into the labs and picking up their print jobs themselves at all cybrary locations.

This, and other pilot programs are up for consideration in upcoming semesters. Another possible addition is an iPrint Anywhere program, which will allow students using a laptop, or working from an off-campus location, to send their print job to the labs. The software for such a program is currently being developed.

"That would be a real home run," Lesniak said.