Thanks to everyone who responded to my question about Lexis & Westlaw dedicated
high-speed printers. I've repeated the question below, along with the answers
I received.
One consideration not noted below is that Eclipses on Lexis
can't be routed to network printers. You could, however, change the setup
so that they go to email instead.
Cindy Chick
Manager of Information Resources
- Knowledge Systems
Email - cindy dot chick at lw.com
LATHAM & WATKINS LLP
555 West Fifth Street, Suite 800
Los Angeles, CA 90013-1010
Direct Dial:
(213) 891-7242
Fax: (213) 891-7123
Question
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu]On
Behalf
Of cchick.918581@bloglines.com
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 2:09 PM
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Lexis & Westlaw Dedicated High-Speed Printers
We're considering replacing our Lexis & Westlaw high-speed printers with
our
own high-speed network printers instead. I've done some research, and
though
there are financial incentives for keeping them, i.e., free toner,
supplies,
maintenance, and, of course, the cost of the printer, I'm not finding
any
particular functional downside to it.
As far as I can determine,
attorneys are printing to network printers more often, and usage of the Lexis
& Westlaw high-speed printers seems to be dropping. In some offices we could
probably replace both the Lexis & Westlaw printers with one network high-speed
printer.
Has anyone done this? If so, were there any unanticipated benefits
or drawbacks that you could share?
Cindy L. Chick
Manager of Information
Resources Knowledge Systems
Latham & Watkins
213-891-7242
Answers
RE: Lexis & Westlaw Dedicated High-Speed Printers
I posted this question
about a year ago? And the only reason that was valid, at least for Lexis,
that the tables that are available within the cases printed great on the Lexis
Printer but not on our firm's attached printers. (this was tested about a
year ago, it may have changed) We decided to keep them because of that and
the reasons you mentioned, though I am sure we will address it again at a
later date. Good luck,
RE: Lexis & Westlaw Dedicated High-Speed Printers
It depends on how you have your high-speed printers set up. If you use
the internet version, then there probably isn't much difference. We
elected
to keep them and to keep them on modems....that way if we
experiencing network
problems attorneys could use our dial in back ups
and send results to the
printers. So basically we kept them as
back-ups.
RE: Lexis & Westlaw
Dedicated High-Speed Printers
Hi Cindy. If you get a lot of responses
to this, please post them to
the list. I too have noticed the usage of our
dedicated W & L printers
going way down. Thanks!
RE: Lexis & Westlaw
Dedicated High-Speed Printers
We were happy to free up the monthly telecommunications
cost for having the line available for the individual modems, but mainly my
reasoning was that people kept re-sending the printouts to the printer thinking
they were heading to the attached printers, and then I would finally get a
call about trouble printing. By then, I'd paid 3 times for the Lexis results
to be printed.
Re: Lexis & Westlaw Dedicated High-Speed Printers
My
firm dropped those a long time ago - prior to 1990. Especially in a
small
firm, space is a problem. Also, attorneys don't want to walk and
further
than they have to, to get to their printer. My experience is
that attorneys
want the space for document storage, conference rooms and
trial preparation
space.
RE: Lexis & Westlaw Dedicated High-Speed Printers
Cindy,
I am library director at a midsize firm with one office, so not comparable
to L&W in that way! But, we have been remodeling, and our IT director asked
whether we could remove the dedicated printers for space reasons. After polling
the users, I determined that few still used the dedicated printers, and of
those on one was committed to keeping them at all cost. So, about six months
ago, they were removed. I have had no complaints.
RE: Lexis & Westlaw
Dedicated High-Speed Printers
we lost our dedicated printers when we moved
and downsized. their thinking was that we don't need them we just use the
regular printers on each floor.
we've had problems.
Re: Lexis & Westlaw
Dedicated High-Speed Printers
We had a free Lexis printer, but it was old
and we
didn't get any free supplies. It was used by a few
people who had
lots of print jobs, but we had ongoing
problems with printer jams. We finally
got rid of it
and it hasn't been missed as most people were already
printing
to their attached printer or downloading (or
easily adapted to doing this).
The primary benefit -- the library no longer has to
deal with the Lexis
printer problems and we have not
heard any complaints re printing to attached
printers.
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