Here are the responses I received from my post last Saturday pertaining
to unlimited Lexis/Westlaw printing provided by vendors to law
students. The academic law libraries are listed and then the firm and
court libraries.
Thanks to everyone who responded! It has definitely helped us as we
consider whether to allow the unlimited printing that Lexis and Westlaw
offer to the law students. We haven't made a decision yet but we're
meeting with students tomorrow.
Suzanne Darais
University of Utah
SJ Quinney Law Library
Northern Kentucky University
We allow unlimited WEXIS printing. The biggest problem is that some
printouts are never picked up (I suspect that comes mostly but not
always from people searching at home; by the time they get here they
forget they have printouts). Faculty do the same thing though.
Several years ago Westlaw was sending us so much paper we were inundated
- we were afraid to ask them to stop because we thought it would never
start up again when we needed it. So almost everyone in the law school
uses Westlaw paper in their printers for non important stuff, which has
saved us lots of money on paper.
The one thing we try to do is to stress that if you want to print from
WEXIS to use their print function, not the browser function so it isn't
coming from our printing budget (we currently do not limit printing from
our own printers). I look forward to seeing the results.
Lexis Student Rep from Catholic University
Although I am not in charge of making any decisions re: printing at our
school, I am the Lexis student rep at Catholic Univeristy (and future
reference librarian at a major academic law library in NYC!) and have
consistently seen incredibly wasteful behaviour on the part of our
students during the two years that I have had this position. My co-rep
and I joke about the number of forests our students kill on a daily
basis, but I am seriously quite concerned about the way the students
view printing. Because they are not usually well-versed in how Lexis or
Westlaw works (despite the fact that they THINK they are), they will
often print off 5000 page Shepards reports "by accident" and then simply
throw it all away because "they didn't really need it". Because there
is no cost involved in the student's decision to print, they are not
persuaded to take into account any of the factors that both the library
and the vendors have to consider such as cost of materials, labor, and
maintenance of the machines. Were our students to have limits, I
believe they would make much wiser decisions on what they really needed
to print.
While I do not know if any of this will be of use to you, I felt
compelled to answer your email since it is a subject that really bugs
me. I have brought it up many times with my Lexis school rep, who told
me there was nothing I could do (i.e., post a sign near the printer)
because the company WANTS them to print more--the more the print now
when its free, the more they'll print later when it's costing their
firms big bucks.
I look forward to hearing the results of your informal survey.
Carolina School of Law
We have had free WEXIS printing for nearly 10 years now. I have mixed
feelings about it, but I do believe that it benefits the students.
Depending on how your school operates photocopying for students, the
free print jobs can go along way in helping students save money. It's a
nice perk for the students, especially considering how much they're
already spending on their education.
Be prepared, however, to devote a substantial amount of time by library
personnel to troubleshooting printing issues, to managing printer
supplies, and to negotiating service calls when the printers break down.
The toner cartridges and paper shipments can take up a lot of storage
space. Also be prepared for a scandalous amount of waste, as many print
runs are never picked up by the requestors and end up in recycling.
If you already have stand-alone WEXIS printing for the faculty, you
already know the kinds of things that can go wrong and go right, so
multiply that exponentially, depending on the size of your student body
(plus extra snafus generated by the learning curve every fall when new
users are getting accustomed to printing from the services).
University of Miami
We use the Lexis and Westlaw printers and have not had too many
difficulties. The printers need paper and maintenance just like any
printers. My recollection is that there limits even though they may be
high. You may want to find out how long it will take to service the
printers.
Campbell University, North Carolina
As a law student I attended a school who allowed free printing :
Northern Kentucky University, Salmon P. Chase College of Law. Also, we
allow free printing here at Campbell. It is one of the "big" selling
points to prospective students, but we are currently re-thinking our
policies due to the costs involved (toner, paper, etc.)
While I do not feel we face any systematic abuse of the system from
students, nor did many of my classmates "abuse" it in law school. We
certainly felt free to make multiple copies of large outlines we may not
have needed.
Feel free to contact me if you have more specific questions...
Barry University (Orlando, FL)
I work for a library that does allow Lexis and Westlaw free printing.
While our students love it, we have run into a few problems. Here is a
list of what I personally think are the ups and downs (not necessarily
endorsed by my University):
Pros:
1. The students love it and tend to use Westlaw and Lexis more, getting
practice with the systems.
2. It saves the school printers from a lot of printing; thus, they last
longer
Cons:
1. When the printers start to get worn out from large quantities of
printing, you have to really fight to get a replacement printer rather
than constantly calling to have the old one repaired
2. The students print indiscriminately, which we feel may lead to
problems once they leave the school and have to pay for printing (we
have had some students print 2,000 + pages in one sitting and not really
see it as a problem, even after we try to explain the issues to them)
3. Lexis and Westlaw contribute the printers, but not the personnel to
constantly keep up with the printers (we only get about 5 student hours
per week in the library), so school personnel end up maintaining them.
4. When there's a problem, you have to wait for Lexis/Westlaw to deal
with it rather than calling your own tech support people, including to
access the print queue.
All in all, I have days when I praise the free printing and days when I
wish it would go away.
Pace Law Library
We at Pace Law Library permit unlimited printing (it cost us nothing).
The only continuing problem we find is that students print things that
they do not pick up thereby causing us to police the computer lab
occasionally (the West and Lexis student reps do it for the most part).
On some occasions students will print out the entire USCA (to cite one
egregious example) thereby wasting tons of paper and backing up everyone
else's print jobs. When we find that out we cancel the print job
Gonzaga University Law Library
We allow the free printing and have had no problems with it. Sure,
students will print out annotated statutes, FIVE TIMES! - but if Wexis
wants to pay for, and support, that it is up to them. We charge,
however, for our regular printer so we see Wexis printing as a way that
our students can save some money if they are printing out cases for
class.
University of Tulsa
I assume you just do not provide Westlaw and Lexis standalone printers
for the students-just for the faculty and maybe for the law reviews?
Monitoring the WEXIS printing and charging students to pick them up
opens up other issues-the vendors would probably want a cut. Downloading
and emailing print jobs from WEXIS is certaininly an option good for the
students to learn. How much to you charge students for the use of your
network printers? Do you charge them the same for printing from any
electronic source? If you have a good procedure in place and want to
continue your restriction I guarantee your students will be better
searchers than those that do not have printing restrictions.
Washington & Lee University
A few years back Westlaw and Lexis student printing was done via network
printers and such printing was charged at 10c a page like any other
print job (with the caveat that students had a free print allowance of,
I recollect, 800 pages per semester). For several years though we've
had free Lexis and Westlaw printers from the vendors and aside from
needing to throw out accumulated print jobs, and having to keep feeding
the machines with paper and toner (which the vendors supply), we've had
no problems with them - and of course the students love them.
Drake University
You already are paying for the paper, toner and printer costs as part of
your Lexis and Westlaw fees.
Just make sure:
1) the student reps understand that they are responsible for the care
and feeding of the printers
2) the reps have a system in place to file the printouts until they are
picked up
3) you have a place to store the paper and toner
4) the reps know they must move and retrieve the paper from the storage
location.
Good luck. We always have allowed students to print.
Cardozo Law School
Cardozo Law School does not allow free printing. We receive few
complaints from the students and probably save dozens of trees every
year.
Vermont Law School
As a law school with a specialty in environmental law we have felt that
we can not condone unlimited student printing, so we have turned down
offers from LEXIS and Westlaw for unlimited student printing.
North Dakota
Our school does allow unlimited free printing of LexisNexis and Westlaw,
but neither the Law School nor the Law Library pick up the costs.
Both Westlaw and Lexis have set up printers in the student lounge where
the student printing is done. Student reps at the law school hired by
each company deal with the paper supplies and printer issues.
Brown, Rudnick (Hartford, CT)
In the real world, nothing is free. The sooner law students realize
that, the better. It should be considered part of their legal training.
Second Circuit Court of Appeals Law Library
Writing from a federal court library: Free printing in law school
results in printing abuses in libraries, etc. where printing is not free
(like mine).
Stoel, Rives (Salt Lake City, UT)
We ceased allowing/using the free Lexis/Westlaw printers in our office.
The reason: the stand-alone printers were unreliable and an
administrative nightmare. Unless you have a person dedicated to
monitoring the Westlaw/Lexis printers (as well as upset attorneys whose
jobs have been botched), I would say it is better to use the university
networked printers.
Holland & Knight (Los Angeles, CA)
Eons ago, (okay, 10 years...) West gave my law firm a month of free
printing during the summer. Our paper usage jumped. I asked a summer
associate why she'd printed a section of a USCA title (which we had in
hard copy) and she said, "Free printing! Why shouldn't I?" I still shake
my head over that mentality. And today, with jump drives and email, how
many law students seriously need access to printouts of what they pull
from online resources? But then, I'm in private law, not academic, so my
opinion on this topic isn't worth the paper it's printed on. ;) But I
look forward to reading your findings.
Bryon, Cave (Santa Monica, CA)
This is an ongoing concern every year with the summer people.
Theoretically, they seem to hear and understand that there are no
freebies in the law firm setting, but either they forget or getting the
free usage (and not just printing, mind you) is so ingrained that we
have a least one person who racks up a huge bill every summer. We go
through the Lexis/Westlaw cost effective training every year in the
summer and fall, but it never fails. I'm really torn between thinking
the free usage offered by schools is a great way to learn electronic
research skills without fear to thinking it's a huge disservice because
summer associates come here with no concept on how expensive these
services really are.
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton (Los Angeles, CA)
The only problem we've had with free printing is that nobody picks up
the printouts. We only have Lexis printers on one floor of our 5 floor,
non-contiguous office space. Summers (and associates, and partners, for
that matter) print stuff out all the time and don't pick it up. We wind
up throwing away 90% of what comes out of the printer.
The bigger problem for us, frankly, is free research time. But that's a
different issue.
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