Students using school printers at Madison College will encounter Print Smart, a pay-to-print service set to launch on June 10.

Madison College administrators chose the new system in an effort to address five concerns: environmental responsibility, recovering cost of printer paper, maintenance, ink, and the problem of student printer abuse.

“We’re at a point in time when sustainability and environmental responsibility is really just a part of everybody’s way of life,” said Julie Gores, Director of Libraries and Academic Support Services for Madison College. Gores has been with Madison College since March 2008.

“Probably 95 percent of students use the printers responsibly,” said Gores.

Even with close to 100 percent of the student population using printers responsibly, there are still those who abuse printing resources. According to Gores, the average student prints about 300 pages a semester; however, during one semester one student printed 2,500 pages in one week.

With the new Print Smart software, each student will be granted 150 free black and white prints, or 10 color prints, per semester courtesy of Madison College. The student will pay for any prints after that allowance has been reached. Gores believes this will decrease the amount of printer abuse or unnecessary overuse.

Two years ago, Keith Cornielle approached Gores and gave her the task of investigating student printer usage to find solutions. Shortly after, Gores built a team of librarians to research the issue. Her team spent the next two years meeting everyday to discuss ideas. After speaking with every technical school in the state and talking with the top vendors who provide print software, Gores and her team decided to purchase Paper Cut in January of this year.

“Most school’s including the technical schools have a system in place. We’re actually the last technical school in the state to implement a pay-to-print system,” said Gores.

Students will authenticate using their student login and password. Once they are ready to print, they will see a popup, which will confirm their request and the cost of the print job. Once the 150-page allowance is met, students will be able to deposit as little as one dollar and no more than five dollars at a time onto a “Touch Net” account. The cost to print in black & white will be $.05 per page, and $.50 per page for color.

“This system is not meant to make money and it won’t make money, it will simply recover the cost,” said Gores.

Even so, according to Gores, Jennifer Mandich, a Computer Support Specialist for Madison College, made an interesting discovery. Gores claims that Mandich’s findings show it is 40 percent more cost effective to create smaller course packets for students using the in-house duplication department than it would be for students to print on their own.

“We’re also really going to work hard with faculty to show them alternative material they might be able to use,” said Gores, “We’re really committed to serving the students and we’ve tried to make this as student friendly as possible.”

For more information on Print Smart, please visit: libguides.madisoncollege.edu/print-smart?hs=a