WebJunction

This seems to be a sticky question, which may explain why nobody has jumped in to answer it yet.

From what I've read, most libraries that offer wireless do not offer printing from those connections and they let the patrons know in their FAQs or wifi policy statements. Hennepin County Library is typical of many such statements:

"Q. Can I print while using wireless?
A. Printing is not available. If you need to print, please save your work to disk or e-mail files to yourself, then login to a library workstation and send print jobs to a printer."

You can look at more library statements in the "Just the FAQs, Ma'am" section of the [url http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=10993 ]Wireless Success Stories[/url] article in last month's [url http://webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=11027 ]focus on wireless[/url].

I welcome anyone to tell me I'm wrong about this ....

OK, you convinced me!!! I guess what I saw on All Aboard about wireless printers was connecting the printer wireless to workstations AND NOT allowing laptops to connect to a printer wirelessly.

Again, I thank you for your help.

Bobbie

I had a couple of thoughts agout this.

First, don't get stuck on the 'wireless printer' concept. Although as Chris notes, you can buy a wireless print server, keep in mind that you can also buy a wired print server for about 1/2 the cost and just connect the printer directly to the wireless router via CAT5 if that works out logistically. Or you could use an already network ready printer this way.

But I think the main issue with the whole idea is that in order to print, the patron would have to install the printer on their laptop. How this would be done would depend on how the printer is connected to the network. Many of the cheaper wired or wireless print servers want you to install utility software on your pc, so any of those would be a bad idea.

An older network printer, like an HP LaserJet 4050/4100 would work, but in that case, each patron would have to install the printer as a local printer, creating a TCP/IP port for it with IP address of the printer. That would be the hard part. The easy part, is that assuming these are all XP laptops, they wouldn't need to download drivers.

The other way to go would be to connect an old pc to the network to act as the print server and attach the printer to it. This would make the installation easier - since the patron could choose to install a network printer, and then just let that computer search the network for it. This system would also allow you at least some control over printing, since at the very least you could pause printing at the print server and unpause when you want - or also probably add some other print management system there.

But either way, your staff is likely going to spend a lot more time supporting patrons trying to print than they already do supporting patrons just getting on the network.

I think using an old pc as print server probably gives you the most control and flexibility. I believe you would want that pc to be running XP though. If you look at the Sharing tab of the printer, you will see and 'additional drivers' button. This allows you to add drivers for other versions of Windows. This way the patrons do not need to add drivers to their laptops. When they are done printing, they could just delete the printer and there wouldn't be any additional software left on their system.

The reason I say you would want XP, is that my recollection of how this works is that you are given a list of other Windows versions to choose from - so XP will list all previous versions, but doing the same thing on NT will not give you the option to load 2000 or XP drivers.

This could possibly also make it simple enough that you could make up a single sheet set of instructions for installing the printer that your staff could just hand to the patrons. And if the pc and printer are behind the desk, you could control and charge for printing much as you ordinarily would.

If you do try this Bobbie, please let us know how it goes - I'm sure that this is going to be an ever increasing patron request in any library that offers wireless.

DaleM, your reply of last year is intriguing.

We have some of our public PCs on wireless now, and are trying to figure out how to print from them. We do, in fact, have a Laser Jet 4100 and have been told by HP there is no accessory available to make it work with wireless! We'd like to try your idea, but want to be able to keep sending print jobs to the 4100 from wired computers as well as the wireless ones. There only seems to be one port on the back of the printer for a CAT5 cable. If we hook it up to the wireless router, would we still be able to print from the wired computers? If not, is there some kind of adapter that would work to create two connections, kind of like those things you plug into a phone jack to turn it into two?

"just connect the printer directly to the wireless router via CAT5 if that works out logistically"

"An older network printer, like an HP LaserJet 4050/4100 would work, but in that case, each patron would have to install the printer as a local printer, creating a TCP/IP port for it with IP address of the printer."

Yay! It's working! Thanks so much, Dalem.

For future reference if anyone else wants to try it, we are using a Netgear Mini Print Server PS101 in the parallel port. At the Netgear website, there is a list of which print servers are compatible with which printers, and this was the only one known to work with the LaserJet 4100. We have the print server connected to our wireless network. The wired network is still connected through the other port, so we are able to print to the LaserJet 4100 from both networks. Installation was practically painless, except for one PC which was apparently missing the correct printer driver to begin with.