Australia's Science Forum

Do you have your own printer for science? What type do you have? Does it come out of the school's technology budget or the science budget? Who keeps on top of ordering the ink for it? I currently have to walk to the other end of the school to print a label if I make up a new concentration or just want to update bottles. It's wasting so much time (or just not getting done )... so I'm starting to ask about a dedicated science printer. I'd be happy with a small home one from big w or something as it doesn't need to be fancy or do millions of pages at once. So, what do you have access to?

When I started here, I was walking all over for printers whenever I did a label or a risk assessment. First thing I did this year was get them to move an unused printer from another room into my office. Best thing I did. Toner and paper come out of the admin/consumables budget I believe, but they keep track of everything we print via papercut and I'm pretty sure that comes out of our budget. Teachers have linked their laptops to the printer too, so if they need something urgently in class they can print to my office (connected to the labs), instead of sending a student to admin to collect

We have a printer in our prep room. We get our ink and paper from the print room. As far as I know it comes from the school budget. I've never had to purchase or ask if it comes out of our budget.

We have a printer in our science staffroom which adjoins the prep room. The coordinator has his own office and own printer. They are B&W laser printers, so fine for printing chem labels (which are quite legal in B&W). Our IT guys look after toner. We get our paper from a general college supply.
If I want colour printing I have to send it to a printer in admin and collect it.
We tried to upgrade to a colour printer here but failed.

I have a B/W laser printer in Staff room which is a reasonable walk but most of the time I'm needing Colour stuff and have to walk 4 flights of stairs and the other side of the school .
I have to ring the Printroom , see if they are using the Colour printer and then make sure the Bypass tray is not used .Then I send to the printer , walk up and put label sheet in bypass as it sits there waiting until it's loaded .

I don't mind stretching my legs , but I hate it when I have put the sheet in upside down or it jambs up because I've run the same sheet through too many times , and I have to go back and reprint it . Quicker than logging on to the PC in the Printroom and doing it from there.
At one stage I was getting the Printroom lady to load labels for me , but invariably there would be a stuff up .

Laser colour is a must for Labs as Inkjets run when wet .

Luckily I have a colour HP printer in my prep room. Before this I had to go down two floors to the staff room and pray that my lazy staff had actually put paper in the printer and there wasn't a paper jamb. Think I was given one to shut me up.....squeaky wheel.
My paper comes out of our budget but think ink etc is school funded.

We have a black and white in our lab office, budget comes out of science. I would go insane if I didn't have a printer.

We have a great printer in the Staff Room.
It is my baby.
I maintain it, unjam the paper jams that happen, make sure supplies are available and all things photocopy.
I know this is not in my job description so to speak but the availability of this in our staff room is great.
Each faculty has a code that they use if they do printing and also our laptops are able to print directly to it.
The front office has a main photocopy and ours is basically the same except it does not have the extra paper tray that the front one does.

I used to have to walk across to the other side of the school to use a colour printer, and there was a black & white one here in my block. Now however, after years of begging, we have a colour printer here in the block!!! So exciting!!!

Handy hint when sending anything - but especially labels - to the printer: use the "secure print" option. That way the printer will not even try to print anything you send there until you are there and tell it to go. Saves soooo much stress and worry that someone will just duck in and put paper in the bypass tray.

I have an old B & W printer that I stole from a teacher, with help, I think it is obselete, but IT will get me a new one when I need it. I have "borrowed" the library laser printer for labelling. IT supplies paper and ink.