How to control printing expenses in an open computer lab?

April 22, 2009 9:31 AM

How can I limit printing quantities on a quasi-public networked printer? I run a small nonprofit computer center with 10 networked computers (8 XP, 2 OSX). I need to control ink & paper costs, but want people to be able to print free or low, low cost. When I was at Uni, we had a system where all users had to buy tokens at 5 cents a page. Is there an open source or low cost program that can help me do this? Even if my selling cost is zero, I want to track users and usage.

My implementation skills are medium, but I have access to some great technical folks, so don't be afraid to suggest something complex if it will help us keep our center running. Most patrons are mindful, but we get the occasional conspiracy nutjob who feels the need to print a 200 page pdf on our system so that Alphaville can't track her. The computer area of the center is often unsupervised for adult users and I don't want to have to make judgment calls on what people can or can't print. I can afford to allow maybe up to 30-50 free pages per month per user. Right now everyone signs in using a generic account, but I can change the system to have unique registration--which of course will send my conspiricists to the public library where they charge $0.10/pg but retain anonymity.

posted by beelzbubba to computers & internet (6 comments total)

How are your printers currently set up? What kind of printers do you have? Are they attached locally to certain machines and shared? Are they on a central machine and shared with all others over the network?
posted by odinsdream at 9:40 AM on April 22

Yeah, we need more details.

But PyKota is a package that I've used in the past to calculate print accounting information. It is a custom back-end for CUPS.
posted by zpousman at 9:44 AM on April 22

Printers are HP and Epson inkjets, with plans for adding a b&w laser. Both printers are USB connected to a PC and the others all connect by sharing the printers locally. We have a wireless network set up in the lab and our admin offices run on a separate network. Whatever solution will be applied just to the computer lab and we are flexible as far as setting up a print server or a central pc to network the printers.
posted by beelzbubba at 9:51 AM on April 22

When I was running a similar setup the printer was in a different part of the building not accessible to the public, so people would have to ask for their print outs. We tied this with the decidedly low tech system of tallying the number of prints on a piece of paper and adding them up at the end of the day. Prints were cheap but making people ask for them made people think before printing.
posted by tallus at 11:21 AM on April 22

If your users are mostly mature and responsible, it wold be soooooo much easier to use an honor system. Put a jar next to each printer with a sign that says "5 cents a page. Deposit money here."
posted by exphysicist345 at 11:22 PM on April 23

The "tip jar" concept would work for the adults, but from 3 until 7 I also run an afterschool program, where, for any number of reasons, I think an unsecured piggy bank would go walksies, and I'm looking for something with a low threshold for monitoring.

The PyKota resolution will most likely work the best once I get my IT contractor to give me some undivided attention.

All of the pay-go options require too much intervention on my part.
posted by beelzbubba at 8:05 PM on June 1