Because of the increase in student enrollment and rules ignored by lab attendants, an excessive amount of paper is wasted in labs.

Each year, about 10 to 15 percent more paper is used than allowed and NIU has not received any additional funding for paper. Its yearly budget only allows $150,000 for paper, said ITS supervisor Elizabeth Leake.

ITS now wants to know where and to whom the paper is going so no one is blamed for extra paper they did not use, Leake said.

Last year, members of ITS had several meetings to see if they could cut costs dealing with the issue of paper wasted in the computer labs.

To correct this problem, ITS now requires students to swipe their NIU OneCard at special card reading computers to receive printouts. These systems were first tested in the Founders Memorial Library computer lab on the third floor of the library in March.

Another reason for starting the card-swiping system was a slight increase in student enrollment, Leake said.

Rules set by the ITS in the 1980s were not being followed by the lab attendants, Leake said. Students are not supposed to print more than 16 pages or multiple copies of documents. With the new system, if the document is longer than 16 pages or if students try to print multiple copies of something, the computer will not print it.

All ITS labs, including Reavis, DuSable, Graham, and Gabel halls and the library, are actively using the system. This year, the issue has been solving itself from the inside, Leake said.

With these systems, instead of the lab attendant governing what is printed or not, the system itself will not allow the rules to be broken.

Leake said if students go into the labs and look in the waste baskets, they can see an improvement.

Darnell Clark, a lab attendant in Graham Hall’s computer lab, said the system is saving more paper than previous years because students can see what they need and only print those documents.

While there is no charge for printing right now, more serious measures may be taken if the problem with the increase in paper use each year is not fixed. ITS is thinking about possibly fining students who break the rules, but nothing is set in stone, Leake said.

Leake said there has been no discussion of charging at all for printouts and the readers are simply in place to track who is printing what and to keep the rules unbroken so all students are able to receive their fair share of paper. She also said almost all universities have systems similar to this and they have been proven to work as they should.