Memorandum

To:             V. Boudreau, President

City College New York

From:         A. Ramanathan Ramesh, Student

Subject:     The availability of free printing services

Date:          9 September 2019

The purpose of this memo is to present the lack of access and availability of free printing services across campus and the advantage of decentralizing printing services.

Summary

The CCNY Tech Center of NAC is the only lab with free printing services that the entire campus can use. This leaves the CCNY Tech center extremely busy throughout the year, with long queues to use the printers and with waiting times as long as an hour. There are only 5 printers that provide free printing services in CCNY to tackle the needs of 16,000 students and this must change in order to meet the demands of the students and to reduce the average time spent by students to print.

Discussion

As of now, every CCNY student is allotted 1000 printing credits every semester which is only applicable for 8 ½ by 11 pages. It is only applicable to the 3 printers in the CCNY Tech center, 1 printer at the NAC lobby and 1 printer at the Marshak Science Building. According to CCNY’s official website, one can access this allocation at the Graduate and Undergraduate labs, but these two labs have been undergoing renovation for the last two years. This website also mentions that the CUNY Technology fee of $62.50/student is used to run the tech labs, the student laptop loaning program, the smart class initiative and the printing services. By cutting down the accessibility to printing services, the school does not save a huge amount of money, and the money saved is just reallocated to other services listed above.

It is to be noted that the printers that the allowance is applicable to are listed above but there are other printers one can use to print in the campus for a price. At the printers in libraries like the Cohen, Architecture and Music and Arts Library, one can print for a cost using “Copy Cards” which students must buy and recharge. The Computer Lab and CAD lab have their own system of credits (completely different from 1000 printing credits) that one must pay for. These conflicting systems to access a single service, leaves students confused and perplexed, and they often opt to print at stores or their own apartments to avoid confusion. Other universities operate differently, for example NYU provides 50$ a semester for each student wherein students can print on any printer in the campus using their personal computer, mobile phone or public computer at 10 cents per page.

 

 

Recommendation

The solution is to centralize the printing service system. All 8 ½/ 11 printers in the campus should adopt the 1000 printing credits system. This way the system to access printing services becomes unified and easy to comprehend. This system can reduce crowding at the CCNY Tech Center and reduce time consumption when it comes to printing. By adopting this system, students can avail this allocation depending upon where and when they want to use it.

The costs to install this solution is the bare minimum, the computers in each location should install the existing credit system software. The printers may use up more ink and toners than they would when one pays for it, but the Tech Center may not require as many toners, so the cost might be nullified or be raised by a minimum and it can be paid for from the CUNY Technology Fee. For a smooth transition, the campus can start off with adopting this practice at the printers in the labs such as CAD lab which are under the supervision of the Tech Center next semester onwards and it can gradually extend to the libraries in the following academic year.

The website claims that the Tech Center limits its printing services to promote sustainability, but this can be better achieved by capping the number of pages one uses or providing subsidiaries if students print on both sides. The aim is to go green, but when most classes still require hard copies or printed versions, it is only appropriate to make this service available and accessible.