Articles, Courses, Discussions, Groups Mark Tillman 2009-10-02T19:15:15Z 2009-10-02T19:15:15Z

Currently our library uses Envisionware&#039;s LPT One to manage patron print jobs.<br /><br />We are looking for a solution that will allow patrons to self print &#040;securely release their print jobs at a printer or copier once the items have been paid for&#041; so that staff will no longer have to be involved.<br /><br />Envisionware does offer this type of product but I would like to know what other libraries use, if you recommend it &#040;or not!&#041;, and what kind of upfront as well as recurring costs are involved.<br /><br />Thank you!

Mark Tillman 2009-10-02T19:15:15Z Brian Hutzell 2008-07-19T17:57:37Z 2008-07-19T17:57:37Z

At our library, we have two patron scanners and a printer that will do either B&amp;W or color. Plus, most of the patron PCs have internet access, so unless we monitor everything everyone prints, there is already the danger that someone will print out something objectionable or even downright illegal. &#040;How many libraries check to see who&#039;s printing out song lyrics or other copyrighted material?&#041;<br /><br />I totally agree with you on the issue of loading/unloading special photo papers! Who needs that hassle?<br /><br />Having said that, I&#039;d like to give a little plug for a printer that I own at home, which works very well for printing photos: The Canon Pixma ip4200. Very inexpensive, with decent quality and easy borderless printing. I like it much more than either of my previous printers, one an Epson and one an HP. &#040;Sorry, I don&#039;t remember the model number on those.&#041;

Brian Hutzell 2008-07-19T17:57:37Z Peggy Johansen 2008-07-18T19:19:13Z 2008-07-18T19:19:13Z

Thank you for the feedback! I understand that it would be a big commitment on the part of the staff and I will take that into consideration.

Peggy Johansen 2008-07-18T19:19:13Z Wendell Gragg 2008-07-17T15:12:52Z 2008-07-17T15:12:52Z

We don&#039;t use a photo printer and frankly, I would really be concerned about having one in our library. Besides the fact that ink and paper are very expensive, I would be concerned about patrons mucking up the printer by deciding to fix problems themselves, or bringing in their own paper and jamming the works. Also, if their pictures don&#039;t print the way they want, they will want a refund, blame the printer, etc., when they really should have done proper post processing and chosend the proper options for printing. Further, if you have matte paper loaded, someone will invariably want glossy. If you have 4x6, they will want to print a 5x7, which will involve staff time to change the paper and then, if printing from a computer, they will have to adjust their paper settings in software. Big potential for high staff intervention.<br /><br />All of that is some things that neither or I nor my staff would want to tackle. We have enough problems with the patrons damaging our monochrome lasers without something as finicky as a photo printer being added into the mix.<br /><br />In my mind, what is a better option for them is to upload their pics to Wal&#045;Mart, Sam&#039;s, Costco, Ritz or any number of other commerical sites and then pick them up later. They are actually cheaper that way and the library does not have any liability. Further, at least in Texas, if you provide photo printing services, you are supposed to look at every photo and are bound by law to report the printing of obscenity and child pornography to the police. Most states have similar laws and most librarians would not like being put into that position.<br /><br />Sorry to be so down about it, but I think you should really consider the ramifications and check your state laws before getting into photo printing services.

Wendell Gragg 2008-07-17T15:12:52Z Peggy Johansen 2008-07-17T03:26:14Z 2008-07-17T03:26:14Z

Hi all,<br /><br />Does anyone&#039;s library have a color photo printer for use by library patrons? If so, what type? Also, does anyone have thoughts on the pros and cons of having a color printer dedicated to photos?<br /><br />I&#039;m considering the HP PS C8180 All in One because it has amazing features&#045; will scan/print from slides and negatives, will &#034;print&#034; to a CD or DVD, as well as the fact that you can put your memory card directly into it rather than going through a computer.<br /><br />It might be better to stick with a simple printer, though, rather than an All in One, on the theory that a simpler machine will have less ways in which it can have problems. For example, the Epson C120 color inkjet. &#040;The color ink is actually more expensive for the Epson, though.&#041;<br /><br />Any thoughts?<br /><br />PJ

Peggy Johansen 2008-07-17T03:26:14Z Wendell Gragg 2007-07-23T16:50:50Z 2007-07-23T16:50:50Z

We have an HP Laserjet 1320n printer that really is bad on PDF documents. It either hangs totally or is very slow on many PDF&#039;s, especially those created with newer versions of Acrobat. On doing some research, I have found that it is a common problem with this printer, so I am looking at replacing it.<br /><br />What I want to know is if anyone has any printers they have found do not choke on PDF&#039;s. I am looking at a laserjet 4250 or 4240 with networking built in.<br /><br />Does anyone have any suggestions to make, or experience with the above computers?<br /><br />Thanks,<br />Wendell

Wendell Gragg 2007-07-23T16:50:50Z Wendell Gragg 2007-03-05T14:57:43Z 2007-03-05T14:57:43Z

I&#039;m curious why you no longer have the option to use a static address? From a technical standpoint, you can still assign a static address on a dhcp network. We do that with our printers now. Most of our computers use dynamic addresses, but our servers and printers use static addresses on the same subnet.<br /><br />Is this something that was determined by your IT dept?<br /><br />As for the Jetdirect card, hopefully someone has a little more experience with those than I.<br /><br />Wendell

Wendell Gragg 2007-03-05T14:57:43Z Archived Member 2007-03-05T14:53:10Z 2007-03-05T14:53:10Z

We just switched our Gates computers to a dhcp setup. Does anyone know how I should setup the jetdirect network card in the HP4100n printer so that is dhcp. We used to have a static ip address for this printer but no longer have that option. Thanks for any help or direction that anyone can offer!

Archived Member 2007-03-05T14:53:10Z Janie Hermann 2007-02-16T19:53:06Z 2007-02-16T19:53:06Z

Thanks everyone for taking the time to make great suggestions. All of them are under consideration.<br /><br />We are having a meeting on Tuesday to go over the pros and cons and make a purchase decision. I will update next week!

Janie Hermann 2007-02-16T19:53:06Z Dale Musselman 2007-02-10T23:17:08Z 2007-02-10T23:17:08Z

With that budget and needing networking, I would take a good look at the HP Photosmart Pro B9180. It has pigment&#045;based inks, photo gray cartridge, and can handle paper sizes up to 13 x 19.<br /><br />Of course the higher end Epsons are very nice as well, but I don&#039;t recall any of them having networking capability &#045; though you could probably just buy an external print server to use with them.<br /><br />Dale

Dale Musselman 2007-02-10T23:17:08Z Wendell Gragg 2007-02-09T17:27:21Z 2007-02-09T17:27:21Z

I&#039;m an amateur photographer on the side and honestly, the best printers I have seen for photo printing is the Epson line. Which one you would want depends upon things like the maximum size you want to print and whether you want to use dye based or pigment based inks.<br /><br />In any case, you might look at either the Epson R2400 or R1800 printers. They have an excellent reputation for high quality photos and there are a number of paper/printer profiles available for them.<br /><br />Wendell

Wendell Gragg 2007-02-09T17:27:21Z Janie Hermann 2007-02-09T16:58:27Z 2007-02-09T16:58:27Z

I am bumping an old thread, mostly because I am just starting the search for a new printer and thought maybe someone would jump in and tell me all about the wonderful printer they bought to give me a starting point.<br /><br />I am looking for a new printer for our Tech Center. It has to have networking capabilities, but more importantly, it must be a top&#045;notch photo printer. We offer classes on using PhotoShop and we print a lot of photos for people in general &#040;for a fee&#041;.<br /><br />We would like to stay under $1000 if we can.<br /><br />Input welcome. I will update as I do my research.

Janie Hermann 2007-02-09T16:58:27Z Dale Musselman 2007-01-10T23:51:49Z 2007-01-10T23:51:49Z

Yes, it shouldn&#039;t matter if the printer is installed on that computer &#045; it&#039;s just acting like a mini web server.<br /><br />If you can&#039;t access the web interface, there are two other possibilities. There is also telnet access, but that requires knowing the correct commands to type. A better next thing to try is to download and install the HP Network Printer Wizard. <br /><br />If you go to www.hp.com &#045; click on Support and Drivers and search for &#034;Network Printer Wizard&#034; you can get the latest version. You will need to install this program on the computer, but nice thing about it is that it should be able to find and configure the JetDirect card of the printer even though it isn&#039;t currently on the same ip range as the computer.<br /><br />Dale

Dale Musselman 2007-01-10T23:51:49Z Amber Waters 2007-01-10T21:13:00Z 2007-01-10T21:13:00Z

ok if the printer is no longer setup on a computer can you set up any computer using our old ip, subnet mask and gateway and connect to the jet direct card by the web browser. Because I tried that and it did not work.

Amber Waters 2007-01-10T21:13:00Z Dale Musselman 2007-01-10T20:36:41Z 2007-01-10T20:36:41Z

I do understand about the LaserJet 2100. I considerable time in the US Library program installing and supporting them. You&#039;ll just have to take my word on this and give it a try. I realize that once you change the ip on the computer that you won&#039;t be able to connect to the internet, but the good thing is that you aren&#039;t trying to connect to the internet, you are connecting to the printer, which is on the same LAN &#040;I&#039;m assuming here, they do need to be on the same physical LAN&#041; as the computer.<br /><br />So when you open the browser, it will search for and fail to find whatever the home page is. Once it gives up, you can then go ahead and type the ip address of the printer in, and you should be connected to the printer.<br /><br />Dale

Dale Musselman 2007-01-10T20:36:41Z Amber Waters 2007-01-10T19:58:56Z 2007-01-10T19:58:56Z

The printer is a network printer it is not connected to any one computer. You can&#039;t change the ip on the computer back to our old ip because if you do the computer will not connect to the internet so you can&#039;t type the printer&#039;s old ip in.

Amber Waters 2007-01-10T19:58:56Z Dale Musselman 2007-01-03T16:58:24Z 2007-01-03T16:58:24Z

The easiest way to do this is just to go ahead and temporarily change the ip address, subnet and gateway of one computer back to the old range that the printer is still on. This will let you put the printer ip in the browser and get into the JetDirect card&#039;s web interface. Once you change the printer&#039;s ip to the new range you will lose connection, and need to change the computer&#039;s ip back to the new range.<br /><br />If you need any of the ip scheme details, I beleive that pressing both buttons at once on that printer will print out an info sheet containing all the ip data.<br /><br />Dale

Dale Musselman 2007-01-03T16:58:24Z Amber Waters 2007-01-03T15:05:50Z 2007-01-03T15:05:50Z

I have a hp laserjet 2100m series printer. It still has our old ip address &#040;150.xxx&#041; on it and our network has changed with new ip address &#040;170.xxx&#041;.How to I change the ip address to our new one. I can&#039;t change it on the printer itself because it does not have the functionality to do that &#040;its an old network printer&#041; and I also can type the ip address in the web browser because the old ip address is not recognized by our new set of numbers. What can I do to change it.

Amber Waters 2007-01-03T15:05:50Z Erica Cathers 2006-11-30T16:22:25Z 2006-11-30T16:22:25Z

Yay! It&#039;s working! Thanks so much, Dalem.<br /><br />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.

Erica Cathers 2006-11-30T16:22:25Z Dale Musselman 2006-11-21T22:15:01Z 2006-11-21T22:15:01Z

There are two different solutions that come to mind for allowing printing to this printer from both your normal network and the wireless network.<br /><br />The first is easiest, but depends on your network configuration. If the printer is using a public ip addresses &#040;anything EXCEPT: 10.0.0.0 &#045; 10.255.255.255 or 172.16.0.0 &#045; 172.31.255.255 or 192.168.0.0 &#045; 192.168.255.255&#041; then you should be able to just print directly to it from the wireless computers via ip address. <br /><br />Although the 4100 only has one CAT5 connection, it does also have a parallel port. So the other option would be to buy a print server that connects a parallel port printer to the wired network, and connect that to your wireless router. The printer should be able to handle both those types of connections at the same time. Just make sure the print server is compatible with that printer.<br /><br />Dale

Dale Musselman 2006-11-21T22:15:01Z