Students Speak Out After Removal of Printers from Library

Posted By Phoebe Doscher on Sep 17, 2021 | 0 comments

A student uses a printer in Plank basement (Photo Aly Wein/The Gettysburgian)

By Phoebe Doscher, Editor-in-Chief

Last summer, Gettysburg removed the printers from the library to minimize high-touch surfaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. The printers have not been brought back to the library, and instead, students must access them in the basement of Plank Gym, Glatfelter Hall, McCreary Hall, and the HUB in West Building.

This semester, a student started a petition to bring the printers back to the library. The petition has garnered over 350 signatures, prompting Student Senate to bring the issue to administration. Provost Jack Ryan and Infrastructure and Computing Director Thomas Franza, along with Dean of the Library Robin Wagner and Director of Research and Instruction Kerri Odess-Harnish joined Senate over Zoom during Monday’s meeting to hear student concerns.

Many students left Monday’s meeting unsatisfied. No forthcoming plans to put the printers back in the library have been announced, and the printers in various locations around campus still cause issues, as the library staff is not responsible for fixing printer errors, and the CUB desk workers have been trained once, but do not have a physical manual to learn how to keep up with the machines.

Reasons for Removal from Library

Initially, the library removed printers to prevent the spread of COVID-19. According to Dean of Musselman Library Robin Wagner, the printer areas often got crowded with students waiting for print jobs to finish prior to class.

“Physical distancing would have been difficult or impossible to maintain under such circumstances,” Wagner said. “Relocating the printers around campus was an effort to spread out the congestion and allow students to maintain physical distancing.”

Wagner explained that the Provost’s Office—to whom the library reports—is working in conjunction with Information Technology to actively evaluate the best model for printing on campus. While IT is responsible for the printing machines, the staff is located in West Building, away from the printers in central locations on campus, such as Plank.

“The library staff recognizes that printing is an essential service for students and that the library was a convenient venue for printing, even with our now reduced hours,” she added.

Working alongside the Provost’s Office and IT, the library is currently searching for ways to adjust the printing options.

“Evaluating the COVID risk that stemmed from congestion around printers in the library, and the logistical problems that seem to have only increased with the relocation of printers has made it apparent that there are significant opportunities to improve the printing experience, making it much more efficient and much less wasteful,” said Wagner.

User Services Librarian Betsy Bein, who supervises the library’s student assistants at the Circulation Desk, confirmed that the crowding around the printers in the library posed a problem. “Anyone who has interacted with the library printers prior to the pandemic knows that the experience was far from ideal,” she said.

“It often involved delays, corrupt print jobs, printer jams, confusion about what printer a job had been sent to, and the problem of students accidentally taking (or messing up) other students’ work,” Bein added. “The status quo involved high levels of waste of paper and toner, delay and frustration for students, and a total lack of privacy for students’ print jobs.”

Students still face challenges with printing, although they no longer take place in the library. Wagner noted that the College is addressing possible solutions: “The College is looking into whether there are ways to change the logistics of printing so that we can address some of these problems and establish a better printing model for the campus,” Wagner said.

A student adds more paper to a printer in Plank Basement (Photo Aly Wein/The Gettysburgian)

Printer Issues Pose Challenges for Students

The workers at the CUB desk are currently responsible for maintaining the printers in Plank, including refilling them with paper and troubleshooting. These students now get email notifications when something goes wrong, on top of their demands at the CUB lobby.

“We were all confused when they were put in Plank,” CUB Desk Manager Nicole DeJacimo ’22 said. “If the CUB desk is in charge of them it would make more sense for them to be in CUB. Already students have yelled at a few of my staff members. We ask everyone to be patient as we are still learning.”

CUB desk workers have late-night shifts outside of regular business hours, allowing them to assist with printing at a time when full-time staff are off-duty and the library is closed.

Provost Ryan reached the conclusion to utilize CUB Desk staff alongside Director of Student Activities and Greek Life Jon Allen. “It was not an ideal solution but it was something that we mutually came up with,” Ryan said.

The printers were initially removed from the library to prevent crowding and keep the staff safe, according to Wagner. “Everybody goes to the same machines in the same place. It’s not safe for my staff to be around,” she said.

While crowding no longer occurs around the printers in the library, CUB Desk workers are instead responsible for maintaining Plank printers. “If the library’s goal was to reduce the risk of their staff getting COVID, what makes it ok for my staff?” DeJacimo said. According to DeJacimo, CUB Desk workers receive hazard pay.

Now that classes are back in person, some professors are asking students to print out class materials, which has some students rushing to print and troubleshoot in time for class.

“Printers under this current configuration puts undue stress upon all students and strain upon the resources of this institution. No student should be required to run from building to building in hopes of finding a printer that will work,” Joey Labrie ’25 commented on the petition.

Before the College removed the printers from the library, library staff assisted when issues arose, although printer maintenance is not their responsibility. Now, printers are harder to access and problems either go unaddressed or unsolved.

“It took me an hour to print a single sheet of paper,” Ziv Carmi ’23 said. “I had to go through every single printer in Glatfelter … and not a single one worked. I ultimately ended up having to use a departmental printer.”

Student Concerns Prompt Petition

The printer relocation has caused challenges for students since the beginning of the fall semester—enough so that Tess Rodgers ’22 started a petition on Change.org.

“This petition calls for these printers to be put back into the library where they are accessible, and can be overseen by the staff as they were in years past,” Rodgers wrote on the petition.

Out of the available printer locations, West Building, located in the northwest corner of campus, is the only building the library lists as having 24-hour access with a card.

“We can’t keep going on scavenger hunts for these printers that don’t work because no one is looking out for them,” Daniel Lee ’22 commented on the petition.

A student opens a paper tray to address a printer issue in Plank basement (Photo Aly Wein/The Gettysburgian)

Sustainability concerns

At Monday’s Senate meeting, Jack Ryan outlined the resources and cost of the printing machines. Between the 2016-17 and 2018-19 academic years, the College went through more than 2 million sheets of paper each year, averaging between $12,000 and $14,000.

With printer issues, including paper jams, toner changes, and delayed print jobs, more paper gets wasted in the process. When asked if Ryan could encourage faculty to not require printed materials, he said a mandate is not possible.

“Asking or demanding the faculty to not ask students to print would be very difficult. We can encourage people to do that, but we cannot mandate,” Ryan said.

President of Gettysburg Environmental Concerns Organization Diana Biesecker ’22 found reason for concern in the continued use of printers, considering the College’s commitment to reaching carbon neutrality by 2032.

“Campus-wide, we were encouraged to become “paper-less” over the last couple of years, with many departments and students actually going about this change very successfully,” she said. “In order for us to successfully go “paper-less”, our professors need to stop requiring our assignments to be printed out.”

Nevertheless, professors have been asking for hard copies of assignments. “My professor requires us to print out every homework assignment, and it is such a source of stress to hunt out a working printer before class,” biochemistry and molecular biology major Jordan Markle ’22 commented on the petition.

Reaching a Solution

At the Senate meeting on Sept. 13, Senate President Syd Quan and students proposed a number of compromises for Ryan, Franza, and Wagner to consider.

“I’d like to think about how we can come up with a solution together that we can afford, that’s reliable, simplifies things, but doesn’t put my staff at risk,” Wagner said.

During the meeting, Quan and other students proposed a number of potential compromises, including stationing IT staff in the library, hiring student workers to take care of printers, and asking faculty to cut down on printing.

Ryan said that budget restraints and short-staffing pose as barriers to the proposed solution of putting IT in the library or hiring students to maintain the printers. “IT is seeing a loss of workers so I don’t know how many people would be available,” Ryan said. “I don’t know if IT would be willing to cover [through] 11:00 [p.m.]”

In regard to limiting the amount of printing, Ryan acknowledged that students might need physical copies to make notes in the margins or highlight their work.

Sophia Meyer ‘24 confirmed this; “I’m an anthropology major and [political] sci major and all I have to do is reading. I’m averaging about forty sheets of paper per class [each week]. I have to print things to actually be able to read them.”

One proposed solution to the printer backups included a print release system, where students receive a budget to print each semester and send their print jobs to printers across campus, where they can pick them up.

As of Monday’s meeting, the College has not found a solution. Printers are currently in the following locations:

Printers in Glatfelter