2008 Woodie Awards
Library concerned with waste of paper
Michael Stone
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: News
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The money for this budget comes from the technology-access fee part of tuition.
"The printing budget entails paper, ink, and a staff to keep the printers running," said instructional librarian Kristen West.
Over the past few years, this amount has not been enough to last the whole year and other library funds have been diverted to cover the cost.
"The money is not enough because students are printing too much paper and aren't using much of it. We have had to borrow as much as $12,000 dollars a year from other library funds to cover the excessive amounts of printing. This is unfortunate because that money could be going to reusable items like books," West said.
The library staff held a meeting last semester to devise a plan on what could be done to urge students to not waste paper.
"We decided the best way to get students to not waste was to show them just how much they were wasting. We began putting blue recycle bins full of discarded printer paper at the base of the staircase last semester in hopes that students would look at them and say 'Wow, I need to be more mindful about my printing'," said library specialist Kristen Keene.
The library continued the "recycle-bin" method throughout last semester and at the beginning of this semester.
"Students were paying little to no attention to the bins except to throw trash in them," Keene said.
Statistics from the beginning of this semester showed that students were not printing any less then they had before.
"We got really worried when the first quarter numbers of this year came in. Of the $73,133 printing budget for July 2007 to June 2008, $22,475 of it was used in the months of July, August, and September," Keene said.
The library staff once again wondered what to do so that paper waste would be reduced. The decision came to keep the theme of showing the student body how much it was wasting, but this time on a much larger scale.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
Anon
posted 11/29/07 @ 8:47 AM CST
Sorry MTSU, but there is no way to avoid wasting paper. Students must type paper after paper and as any librarian knows we have to format things the way teachers want, meaning often double spaced, 12 pt font, and these papers can be 10-15 pages at times. (Continued…)
Jamie
posted 11/29/07 @ 12:27 PM CST
I agree with Anon. There are lots of ways that the money we pay for the university is not being used correctly, but that is an entirely different story. (Continued…)
Someone goofed up.
posted 11/29/07 @ 1:53 PM CST
Funny, when the library used to CHARGE per page to print - I never heard them mention this issue... Maybe the solution is to AGAIN (since this policy was already in place years ago) charge people to print. (Continued…)
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