Reports of printer issues throughout Keene State College’s campus are on the rise this semester.
Locations containing printing kiosks for students are the L.P. Young Student Center, Mason Library, Elliot Center, TDS Center, Putnam Science Center and Rhodes Hall.
University System of New Hampshire (USNH) Systems IT Director Jermyn Ong said when a printer on campus is shown to be out of service, it is often due to there being a supply issue with paper or toner.
According to Ong, the IT service team gets notified often before these supplies run out.
“ Anytime a toner is low, that generates a notification to us and what printer it is and that will allow us to be able to check our inventory,” Ong said. “If [the printer] already used 80 percent, we get a notification, we also get another alert if it gets to 90 percent … same goes for paper.”
In addition to the system notifications, Ong said there are weekly checks of printers on campus.
“Weekly we have our student worker going around or our work study [students] going around campus, looking at these machines just to ensure … that these [printers] are working accordingly,” Ong said.
Regarding the printers on campus that have been more frequently out of service, such as the one in the student center, Ong said, “One of the things we found is that during that time looking at PO’s or purchase orders that we have made toner specific, we’re low on stock with vendors due to some supply chain issue that time.”
Ong added, “It took them maybe around a week and a half to be able to deliver those, that costs, I’ll say, some semi-downtime for those printers.”
Compared to many of the other printers on campus, the one in the student center is the one that receives the most foot-traffic as it is the most convenient for students to use.
“These are heavy, high performance printers, a lot of students use them and the toner that they use is heavily used from our end,” Ong said. “… [With] the supply issue that period, we encountered some delays but we did place the order upon receiving the notification.”
IT Group HelpDesk Manager Elise Morrissette said the lack of space for supplies also adds to the inability to keep up with the business of the student center printer.
“It’s probably the highest kiosk printer… Space is really tough there because the student center staff have to be able to do their service at that front desk that meets their student center needs and the printer is sort of a little extra [part],” Morrissette said. “We don’t have the storage there to store 10 boxes of paper… The boxes of paper are big but they also go through it really quickly.”
Regarding the accessibility of printing on campus at times past 10 or 11 p.m., when the student center and library are closed, Morrissette said the chances students can do that are unlikely and advises students to carve out time in the morning to print if needed.
“When we initially moved to this student print model, I think the student center and the library were open a little bit later, but I know based on just the usage and availability of resources, they might have shortened those… available hours,” Morrissette said. “The student center and library would be the latest locations… Leave that time in the morning [to print].”
According to Ong, the printers at Keene State are fairly new and there will be a batch of new ones coming in the near future.
“They’re up to date, that’s one of the things we do especially every summer is to make sure that these different printers are not going obsolete,” Ong said. “We just recently purchased, if I’m not mistaken, five or six new ones earlier this year and got a few of them replaced.”
Nicole Dumont can be contacted at
ndumont@kscequinox.com
