Personal information, inappropriate pictures, blank pages and party invitations – all of these items come out of the library’s printers on a daily basis. Head librarian Chin Arritola continues to see at least 100 pages a day printed on both the color and black and white printers.
Students don’t realize that all of the school’s computers default to print to the library. Rarely do students check that they are actually set up to print to the room they are in or near. So unintentionally, students are sending their personal information and homework to the library printer instead of a nearby classroom printer. Worse, students often think their page didn’t print and just reprint it, sending the file again to the library.
This is a ridiculous waste of paper. Some kids come to the library and punch their copy card to take their printouts, but many students don’t realize where their work has printed and never pick it up.
Besides the wasted paper, this is a waste of natural resources and money. The ink, toner and paper come from the school budget which means every time students don’t come to pick up things they printed in the library, money is wasted. Along with that, all this printing is not good for the environment.
Students also aren’t efficient with the paper they are using. For instance, when students print things from their online textbooks, rather than printing just the one page that they need, they sometimes end up printing the whole book straight to the library. Students also print Power Points that are 10 to 12 slides long and waste the paper when they could be putting three to six slides on one page.
The backlog of unclaimed papers leaves Arritola’s student aides with the tedious job of sorting through all 100 or so pages every day. Those student aides are in the library to help keep the library in order, but instead they are going through papers that have nothing to do with the library. Sorting them into piles to recycle, shred and reuse isn’t what the library aides should be doing. Their job is to help keep the library running. But the sorting must be done to ensure people’s personal information is disposed of properly.
There are simple solutions to this problem. First, the district needs to resolve the default problem. Every printer in the school should not default to the library. Computers should be set up to print to their nearest printer. This simple change could save thousands of pages of paper. Second, students should be more observant before they print. If it says “RH-1301-H9050,” that’s the library printer. The first set of number corresponds to the room number. So, if the numbers don’t match the room you’re in, you need to add your printer before you print.
If you do end up printing to the library, then at the least, pick up your work and get your copy card punched. Because nobody wants your personal information, pictures or party invitations.
