Dal library scanner will allow cheap, green copying

Purchase aims to reduce photocopying on campus

Dal is hoping to obtain a scanner similar to the Book2Net Kiosk Scanner.

There's nothing more frustrating than a photocopier that isn't working. If it's not a paper jam, the machine is out of toner or worse: it's printing blank pages at your wallet's expense. But officials at Dalhousie University's Killam Library are hoping to introduce a new type of scanner as a solution - and it wouldn't cost users a single penny.

"If you have a print copy of something and you need a digital copy of it, this [scanner] is a very easy way of doing it," says university librarian William Maes.

"We have scanners out in the Learning Commons now, but they're the kind with the lids you press down, you fiddle with it, the software comes up and asks you what to do...this is a lot more simpler. It's more advanced and it's easier to handle."

Dal has issued a tender meaning all interested parties have an opportunity to bid on a service or piece of equipment - in this case, the scanner.

Enlarge Image
Photocopiers will be a thing of the past if students take a liking to the new scanner. Photo: Karen Jouhal

The scanner, which would be roughly four feet high, would allow students to take any material object and convert it to digital form in one of the standard file formats - pdf, jpeg, jpeg 2000 and TIFF.

Students would then be able to store the image on a USB drive or save it to their personal storage drive on campus.

And because it's three-dimensional and scans in colour, Maes says students in faculties such as medicine could really benefit from the new technology.

"If they have models that they're using...like veins or something, they could throw it on there and take an image."

Something else students might appreciate is that they'll no longer have to worry about their peers borrowing their notes and not returning them on time.

"Let's say you're sick and you ask another student...for notes because you're not going to be in class for another week. You can just scan them and e-mail them," Maes says.

"But if it's paper then I have to figure out where to make a photocopy and how am I going to get it to you...I have to go deliver it."

To adhere to copyright laws, the scanner enables library officials to create a watermark on the background of each image that's scanned. It would read ‘Dalhousie University' and therefore make it difficult for students to circulate the image as their own.

Why

The university's main reason for wanting the new scanner is to have students work in a digital environment that also promotes sustainability.

The self-serving scanner, which students would be able to use without any formal training, barely generates any noise because it doesn't have a fan and it works using a single light bulb. As a result, Maes says it takes very little power to function. He hopes it will discourage students from using photocopiers and printers.

"In keeping with the emphasis on sustainability, a good scanner would save paper and toner which are huge costs for the library and students at the moment. Essentially, we would hope to see scanners replacing a large part of the traffic we see on photocopiers now."

However, another reason library officials want the new scanner is to prevent further damage to the bindings of popular textbooks and scholarly journals that are photocopied on a regular basis. To prevent such damage, the new scanner has a five-inch focal depth, so when it scans, "it reads into the [centre] margins" of a book.

Cost

One new scanner is expected to cost roughly $20-25,000 and Dal hopes to obtain at least three that would be placed in Killam Library, and the engineering and health sciences libraries. However, students won't be expected to pay for any of their scans.

"Our intent is to provide [the scanner] for nothing," says Maes.

"Any why for nothing is because there's no cost to us. The only cost is the purchase cost. With scanning, we don't provide any paper and we don't provide any toner, which is a huge cost to us with those large photocopier machines."

Students who were able to use the new scanner when Killam Library hosted a demo last September are already anxious for its arrival.

Maes received dozens of comment forms with positive feedback, including one from a student that wrote: ‘I love the scanner! As a poor student, it has saved a lot of money - more than a photocopier.'

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