To the Editor:
In the April 3 issue of The Dartmouth, you ran an editorial regarding the change Kiewit recently made in its printing policy ["Printing Errors"]. Your statements were very accurate and reflect the views of much of the student body. Kiewit unfairly recycles multiple copies of documents we print, whether or not the documents are the same.
For example, for my computer science class, I had to run my program several times and print out the results. I did so, but several hours later when I went to Kiewit (I wanted to make sure they had ample time to put my papers into the bins), only one copy was there. It was accompanied by a "Notice" from Dartmouth College Computing Services telling me that since my "document was noticed to contain multiple copies of a single document," they "recycled all except one copy."
I have several problems with this. The most pressing was the fact that I did not print multiple copies of a document; I printed several different documents that all looked similar (the only differences among them were inputs and results). Since I didn't know what else to do, I wrote the other input and output values in by hand.
Another problem with this system is that there is no reasonable alternative to printing several copies of a document from the printers. Kiewit suggests that you print out one copy of your paper and then make duplications on the copy machine near the front door. Unfortunately, the copy machine in Kiewit is frequently out of order, does not accept coins and does not have a machine from which to purchase one of those copy machine debit cards. At 3 a.m., your options are severely limited. Now, with Kiewit throwing away all but one copy of your documents, what are you supposed to do?
I am grateful for the public printing we have at Dartmouth. Printers for Macintosh computers are very expensive, but perhaps the money spent on the Kiewit public printers would be better used to reduce the cost of personal printers for students. Then we could all print as many (or as few) copies as we want, without the Kiewit techies dictating what is and is not acceptable.
