Printing Cover Sheets

Last Oct/Nov I was in touch with Information Services regarding how computers can be automatically powered-down at night, evenings and weekends when people are not using them. I know many people notice this and it seems a terribly profligate use of energy. I was told that a hardware upgrade was going to take place this summer which would make it likely that an auto-power down system could be implemented.

A different query that I've just made has also been referenced to the summer - this time, the network printing systems. Every time you print a page on the university network, it comes out with a cover sheet. Now, at least this system makes some sense - at times when everyone's coursework seems to be due at the same time, print jobs come flying thick and fast and if it wasn't for the cover sheets, they would get horribly mixed up. Green bag paper recycling bins are also put right next to printers for users to dump their cover sheet once they've picked up their print job.

There are also many times, however, when the cover sheet simply isn't necessary - when I'm the only person in the room (evening, weekends, early mornings) and no-one else is printing stuff off. In this case, the cover sheet serves less of a purpose, and is particularly annoying when I've only got a couple of pages to print. The university stands to save quite a bit from cutting down on paper consumption in this way. I've now been told that it is likely that when an upgrade of the printing system takes place over the summer, the current arrangement will be altered so that users will have to stick their library card into a reader, then the print job will hurtle out, eliminating the need for cover sheets as the user will be standing right by the printer. It could be a variant of this, and don't ask me the technical bits of how all this will work yet...

Nothing is set in stone yet and I wouldn't take any of these - energy and paper - for granted that they will definitely happen. I'll follow this up towards the end of the year, but at least these issues are being considered by Information Services.