The document discusses issues related to printing in academic libraries. It notes that despite advances in technology, students still rely heavily on printed materials. The library sees around 50,000 pages printed per month, costing $400 in paper and $250 in toner monthly. Over 20 months, almost 1 million pages were printed, costing around $8,000 per year in consumables. The document also notes the environmental impact of unnecessary printing in terms of carbon footprint and waste. Suggestions to reduce waste include limiting large print jobs and deploying electronic document systems.

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BL RUNNING ON EMPTY
24,1
Paperless society?
What a load of scrap
58
Anthony McMullen
Baron-Forness Library, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, Edinboro,
Accepted January 2011
Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into issues encountered in maintaining
library technologies on a limited budget and with limited personnel.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses real-world experiences and data to report on the
costs associated with the provision of high-volume print capabilities in an active academic computing
area in a large university library.
Findings – While advances in technology have changed higher education greatly, students and
instructors alike still depend heavily on the printed page. Moreover, easy access to high-volume
printers seems to encourage indiscriminate printing and wasteful behavior.
Originality/value – This paper offers insights and real world experiences encountered in an active
computing facility. It presents data on printing and provides some suggestions for reining-in waste
associated with unnecessary printing.
Keywords Libraries, Budgets, Waste minimisation
Paper type Viewpoint
As I watched her walk with purpose towards my desk, I remember saying to myself,
“Printer problem . . . She most definitely has a printer problem”. Having spent several
years in a lively information commons area in my university’s library, the most heavily
used computing facility on the entire campus, it is a look I know all too well. The 39
PCs that comprise our commons area rarely site idle for more than a minute or two; one
user logs off, another takes her place. While the days change, the song remains the
same. Fingers on keyboards tap out a melody while the constant humming and
whirring of two laser printers lays down the harmony. Printers? Really? Yes, really.
Despite the popular notion that higher education has embraced high-tech entirely and
that today’s youth is everything digital, college students still use paper; lots of it. In
fact, there is nothing that will bring swarms of students to the reference desk faster
than an offline printer; which brings us back to my student, who by now has reached
my desk and offered to me the three words I hear more frequently than any others: “I
can’t print”.
The hardware in the commons area of Baron-Forness Library is a mixture of 11 new
The Bottom Line: Managing Library Lenovo machines with powerful processors and more than adequate memory and
Finances storage; 16 moderately used HP-Compaq machines that are capable, but likely on their
Vol. 24 No. 1, 2011
pp. 58-60 last legs; and 12 thin client machines that connect to a central server in order to share
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0888-045X
software and resources across the network. The library acquired all of this equipment
DOI 10.1108/08880451111142097 with funds collected from student technology fees. We make every attempt to cycle out

2. some of the older equipment annually; but at approximately $800 per workstation, we Paperless
simply cannot afford to replace all of the equipment at the same time. Students, for the society?
most part, are appreciative of our clean and comfortable computing facility and are
willing to endure the slowness of the older machines. The patience they display toward
the computers is not, however, extended to the two high-volume laser printers to which
all of their prints are directed. When the printers misbehave, the digital natives become
restless. Thus, the “I can’t print” proclamation is often accompanied by a frustrated 59
glare and tinged with an ever so slight trace of hostility.
“Can you tell me more about your printing problem?” I ask. To which the student
replies, “Sure. I clicked on print and nothing happened. I clicked on print again and
nothing happened . . . Again”. Experience has taught me that the root of a problem like
this one can lie in any number of places, so I suggest that we take a stroll over to her
workstation to take a closer look. After a quick look at her computer screen, I
immediately identify the problem. “I see that you’re trying to print a rather lengthy
PDF; 63 pages to be exact”, I say as I begin to explain how our print server, in an effort
to cut down on waste, automatically cancels print jobs in excess of 50 pages. “Yes,” she
replies, “My professor says he is ‘going green’ and that he’ll no longer pass out
photocopied documents, but will put them on his course web page instead. I guess he
thinks we’ll read this stuff online, but nobody does that”. Indeed.
After explaining to the young lady that she would need to print the 63 pages in two
batches, I returned to my desk and pondered the enormity of the situation. If one
professor is posting 63-page documents in an effort to “go green”, surely there must be
others. How many pages do we print on this campus each and every day? How much
does all of this printing cost? While a campus-wide study is beyond the scope of what I
am able to do, I can provide a snapshot based upon prints originating in the library’s
commons area. In the 20 months that have passed since our two laser printers came
online in June of 2009, library users have printed almost one million pages. That
averages out to about 50,000 pages per month, which is equal to ten cases of paper. At
almost $40 per case, that’s $400 per month in paper alone. When we factor in the 30
toner cartridges we have used in those 20 months, we find that we burn through about
$250 worth of toner each month. That amounts to almost $8,000 worth of consumables
each and every year. That, my friends, is a sizable chunk of change in this era of
tightening budgets; and it does not even account for the cost of the printers themselves,
about $3,300 each, and the wear and tear on the same.
What is more alarming than the raw print counts is the pile of paper that is left
behind every day. While we do not count these unclaimed print jobs, it is safe to say
that the wasted sheets number in the hundreds and even thousands on some days. In
these times of increased environmental awareness, it is important that we consider not
only the impact on budgets, but the size of the carbon footprint these stacks of
orphaned prints leave behind. This waste is particularly troubling when viewed in the
context of a recent study conducted by printing giant Lexmark International. Paper
use, according to the study, accounts for roughly 8 percent of Lexmark’s global
warming impact, a rather sobering statistic and a modernized twist on the phrase
“Fahrenheit 451” (Lexmark, 2009a).
While it may be a backhanded compliment, it is somewhat satisfying to note that
my library has not in any way cornered the market on waste. It should come as no
surprise that the Federal government seems to have a stronghold on this unflattering

3. BL title. A 2009 study, also commissioned by Lexmark, found that the average Federal
worker prints 30 pages per workday. What’s worse is that said average worker then
24,1 immediately throws away 35 percent of the pages the very same day they’re printed.
That amounts to a staggering $440.4 million spent annually on unnecessary printing; a
figure that rivals the $498.2 million the government spends each year to print our paper
currency (Lexmark, 2009b). This is shameful.
60 The study goes on to recommend a few strategies to curtail the waste. Included in
these recommendations are:
.
the establishment of standardized guidelines regarding when it is appropriate to
print;
.
the deployment of automatic duplex printing on all printers;
.
the installation of robust electronic filing systems complete with functionalities
for digital signatures; and
.
holding all employees accountable.
While it is unlikely these recommendations will result in the elimination of all waste,
they will almost certainly result in smaller piles of scrap and fewer monies spent on
paper, toner and printer maintenance.
Here on my campus and in sister institutions throughout the state, we are facing
sizeable budget shortfalls in the upcoming fiscal year. It is troubling to think that we
might find ourselves in a situation where we are cutting services and staff when a
simple public awareness campaign could save tens of thousands of dollars annually.
As a largely positive being, I like to think that a little education goes a long way. A
logical place to begin the campaign is with the instructors themselves, who may not
recognize that posting online a 63-page low-resolution scan of a fifth-generation
photocopy is not “going green”, it is simply shifting the burden.
References
Lexmark (2009a), “Lexmark study educates consumers and businesses on improving efficiency
and reducing their carbon footprint”, available at: www1.lexmark.com/content/en_us/
about_us/newsroom/news_releases/lexmark_educates_consumers-businesses_
improving_efficiency.shtml
Lexmark (2009b), “2009 Government Printing Report: a closer look at costs, habits, policies, and
opportunities for savings”, available at: www.governmentprintingreport.com
About the author
Anthony McMullen is Systems Librarian at the Baron-Forness Library, Edinboro University of
Pennsylvania, one of the 14 universities comprising the Pennsylvania State System of Higher
Education. He earned his MSLS at Clarion University of Pennsylvania and has been in the library
profession for 16þ years. Anthony McMullen can be contacted at: amcmullen@ edinboro.edu
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