Public printing has always been a free service provided by Dartmouth. It is a luxury that most students take for granted, but it is also a luxury in danger of being taken away. Between November of 1999, and November of 2000, Dartmouth's public printers printed over 5.5 million pages. What is worse, over 20% of all public printouts are never even picked up. Last term, more than 135,000 pages printed were unclaimed from the Berry public printers alone. In addition, Collis reported that up to 34% of the pages they print are never picked up.
Paper waste is not only being generated by unclaimed documents, but also by cover pages. It is estimated that one fifth of all pages printed on public printers are cover pages. It is assumed, however, that these cover pages are a necessary, albeit frustrating, part of the printing process.
The amount of wasted paper at Dartmouth has lead many students to petition for action, and many administrators to search for solutions. One attempt to solve the problem was the institution of a draft printer at Kiewit, for which the staff would sift through the unclaimed print-outs to find pages that were fit to be reused. The draft printer was available for student use for almost a year, but it was removed due to lack of use. Other solutions have been suggested, such as raising awareness by piling up the wasted paper in front of the printout window, but nothing has been able to change the increasing problem. Although many administrators do not want to institute a system of charging students for their printing, some feel that it is the only way to cut back on paper waste. If Dartmouth does decide to go down this path, it would not be alone. In fact, Dartmouth is one of the few schools in the country that continues to offer public printing for free.
What can be done to reduce the waste, short of beginning to charge students?
Two very important changes are currently in the works. The first is the establishment of duplex printing. By printing on both sides of each page, we could effectively cut the number of printed sheets in half. In addition, duplex printing requires no additional manpower and can be set up easily. The duplex printer will be an option as early as Monday, February 5th, so look for more information regarding this shortly. The eventual goal is to make the duplex the default printer, encouraging patrons to use this waste-reducing option.
The second change involves a restructuring of public printing at Dartmouth. Currently, public printing is isolated in select, monitored areas such as Berry and Collis. Many students complain that the hassle of travelling across campus to pick up their printouts is the reason they may not retrieve much of what they have printed. By expanding public printing into satellite areas, however, we can make the printers more accessible. If every cluster had its own printer, accessibility would no longer be a problem, and waste would be reduced.
In addition, every cluster would be equipped with a computer to sit alongside its public printer. The sole purpose of this computer would be to hold printer queues. The computer would act as a "print release station" for the printers, and would be easy to operate. In order to print a document, the user must submit a clearance code that would allow access to the queued print job. The job would be executed only when the patron selects the document on the station computer and clears his or her document to be printed. The addition of these stations would assure that no document is printed unnecessarily and would eliminate the need for cover sheets.
Neither of these changes would replace any of the current printing options available; they would simply give students more options. The fact remains that 5.5 million pages were printed at Dartmouth last year and at least 1.1 million of them were wasted. There is no reason to believe that this year's number will not be even higher without significant changes in the public printing procedure. With the addition of a duplex printing option now, and the potential installation of cluster printers and release stations, we hope to decrease the overall number of pages printed and the amount of pages unnecessarily printed.
