"Pay-for-Print" Training

Jimmy G. shows librarians how to work the coin-machine, in preparation for the introduction of "pay-for-print" on Friday.

Jimmy rotates the box around to open the back.

Jimmy shows us how to unjam it, how to take the money out, how to refill it.with change.  It is pretty simple.

Users with library cards will get ten free pages per day, paying for additional pages at ten cents per page.  They can put credit on their cards or pay in cash.  "Guests"  will have to pay for any printing in cash.

We anticipate that printing will go way down.  It has already.  This will affect our supply of scratch paper, which we keep in a wire basket at the reference desk to give away.  There is unlikely to be the amount of waste paper that we've gotten in the past from unwanted print jobs.

It is only now sinking in for me, how much the new arrangement has changed my experience at the reference desk.  We have regular Tech/Media Staff covering Internet sign-up at the reference desk now, and this has provided enormous relief.

You are trying to do reference work, helping people find information and use the collection, in person and by telephone, but there is also the constant approach of people wanting "guest passes", who are unable or unwilling to provide themselves with library cards.  And then there are all the other kinds of help that public-access users need, with e-mail, file management, equipment, (such as USB drives and head phones).  We still do some of all this, but to have a skilled Tech/Media staff person at point is something we've never before had.

I have spent almost all my time away from the reference desk yesterday and today at the microfilm viewer and the scanner, searching for and e-mailing obituaries.  I had seven to look for, two with only the month and year, (it takes me 30-40 minutes to search a month+ of microfilm).  I had another e-mail from someone wanting stories about a murder trial "sometime in 1969 or 1970", that I had to turn down.  There is no index for the local newspaper, except for the late'80's and early '90's.
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Finished Patience with God:  the story of Zacchaeus continuing in us, by Tomáš Halík.  My interlibrary loan copy is due May 9.  I bought the e-book editions for this and Night of the Confessor, for my Sony Reader.  Second-hand copies of Patience with God, (2009), are now unavailable at reasonable prices.  Halik has perhaps struck a different chord, in this "Year of Evangelism".  Patience with God, with seekers, with non-believers.  Patience is mercy, love, forgiveness.
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