The idea for the additional stations, which will print 55 rather than 45 pages per minute, originated in the Student Assembly over the summer, said Student Life Committee Leader Chris Bertrand '07, who brought the idea to Provost Barry Scherr.
"Scherr thought this was a great idea," Bertrand said. "He asked [the Student Budget Advisory Committee] to consider the information we got from an Assembly survey and vote on it. We voted for it by a large majority."
The locations of the new terminals, though, have caused some debate. Following the results of the survey, the student committee ranked the Hop as the first priority, followed by Dartmouth Hall, the Gold Coast cluster and Massachusetts Row.
The Hop, however, is problematic, according to Hogan. He listed poor staffing and limited hours as the primary problems with the location.
"The Hop is a very difficult place," he said. "Over at Collis, the printers are monitored by students working at the information desk until 2 a.m. The Hop closes at 11 p.m., and there is no one there to keep it up and running."
Hogan continued to say that the Hop administration offices in charge of maintaining the printers are located in Wilson, a considerable distance from the proposed location of the station.
At this point, Hogan is confident that no new printers will go to the Hop, although he understands students' desire to see one there.
"The Hop makes sense to me," he said. "It makes sense to everybody except for the Hop."
Dartmouth Hall is also unlikely because, as an academic building, it would not be open to students late at the night. A station in Dartmouth Hall would also be impractically close to the one in the Fayerweathers cluster, Hogan said.
"There are two concerns here," he said. "We want to spread the stations out and make sure students have access to them, but we need to be able to take care of them."
Director of Systems Services Dave Bucciero agreed.
"You guys tell us where you want them," he said. "We'll put them there. The concern is that they are not going to be taken care of."
Hogan said that one of the stations will be placed on the third floor of Berry Library, where he feels confident that the station would be both used often and maintained properly. He also speculated that the remaining two stations will be put in the Topliff-New Hamp residence hall cluster and perhaps Wheeler Hall.
Bucciero, who noted that Technical Services originally aimed to have the new stations installed over break but was set back by shipping delays, added that he hopes all the new printers will be in place within the next three weeks.
