THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT

• Printing Charges
• Links to more information and assistance with printing questions
• Printing web pages

Background

The University of Cincinnati spends an estimated $600,000 each year to provide "free" printing to UC students and other users of public computer labs. That computes to over 23 million pages (approximately 118 tons or 2,831 trees) of printed-paper every year. A significant portion of this printing is waste--printouts that are simply discarded, often without ever leaving the printer.

To reduce print volume and better manage costs, most UC computer labs and libraries have instituted a charge to print and new print procedures using Uniprint printer management software from Pharos, Inc. The charge is strictly a cost-recovery measure. Funds collected from Uniprint-managed printers will be used to offset the costs of printing; including printers, supplies (paper, toner, etc.), and the Uniprint system itself.

Cost

Printing cost is $.07 per print and is paid for by the user through a Bearcat Campus Card.

In order to print…

• Students, faculty, and staff need a new-style UC ID or a department Bearcat Campus Card with money on it for printing. The UC ID card is tied to the Bearcat Campus Card system, which enables users to charge printing against their Bearcat Campus Card account.
  
• Guests need to purchase a Bearcat Campus Card, available at VTS machines in Langsam Library. For other locations throughout UC, visit the Bearcat Card Web site.

Procedures to print:

• When a user prints to a Uniprint-managed printer, the system puts the user's print job into a queue.
  
• The user then goes to a release station attached to the printer and slides his or her UC ID (or Bearcat Card) through a card reader.
  
• Next, the user selects the print job from a list of jobs waiting to print, and clicks the "Print" button to print the job.

As alternatives to printing, users are encouraged to save documents to disk, e-mail brief documents to themselves, use double-sided printing (which will be charged as two prints per page), or simply to read the documents on the screen.

For more information, consult:

• Tips to Reducing (and alternatives to) Printing
  How to Save, E-mail, or Print Preview Documents in UC Libraries
• www.uc.edu/Bearcatcard

Printing UC Libraries web pages

To print any web page on the UC Libraries site, simply use your browsers "print" button. The images, and colors are automatically removed from printed documents to conserve space and ink. Any printing problems can be reported to the web master here.