If you’re a new student here on campus, chances are high that you’ve needed to print a few things out already, especially if you enrolled in an Expository Writing class this semester. If you or your roommate has a printer in the room, then you can rest assured knowing that you’ll always have a physical representation of your homework, right? Wrong. The inconvenient truth about technology is that it sometimes, for whatever reason, fails. Not all of these problems are permanent, but in a tense situation with time running out, it’s comforting to have a back-up plan.
For all the students who have forgotten or will ever forget to buy computer paper or printer ink over the weekend, Johns Hopkins created not one but several safety nets to assist you. The most easily found printing center is on M Level in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library, about 50 feet away from the Guard’s Desk. Before you print for the first time, you should be sure that you have either J Cash on your J Card or on a printing card, which you can purchase at the Circulation desk for cash or buy from the black box in the Printing Room with a credit card. If you only want to print black and white copies, you can use the main printing room. For color copies there is a room on A Level that you can use instead.
Prior to printing in the Printing Room, you need to tell the printer what it is you want it to print out. Immediately to the left of the red double doors outside the room are three computers that are for one purpose only: to handle all the printing needs of JHU students. These computers have most of the Microsoft products installed on them, and connections to the Internet through the Mozilla Fire Fox browsers.
After locating your document on the computer, hit the print button. You’ll go through the normal menu items, and after you hit “OK,” you’ll be asked to name your printing job. It’s a good idea to use your last name because you’ll recognize it on a list, and it can be modified with numbers in the case of numerous print jobs.
After you’ve gone through these steps, you can go into the Printing Room and print your documents. Go up to a printer, swipe your J Card or the Printing Card, and the screen will change to a list of all the unfinished print jobs. Look for your print job’s name, check the box next to the job name, and hit the print button. Your account will be charged $0.07 per page; however, the MSE Printing Center prints double sided, so you end up using half the paper that you would have used otherwise.
The Library isn’t the only place on campus you can print either. AMR I, Wolman, and Charles Commons all have their own computer labs, called Residential Computing Clusters (RCC). Each contains nine pcs, two Macs, and two Laser printers, one of which is color. The Charles Commons RCC is equipped with six computers and one printer. The AMR I RCC is open to AMR I and II residents, while the Wolman RCC is open to Wolman and McCoy residents and the Charles Commons RCC to Commons residents. There are also various computer kiosks around campus that are equipped to handle a quick-print task every so often. These printers require a small fee of $0.06 per page.
Of course, if you for some reason can’t physically get to the library or another printing center, you can always use wireless printing and print it out later. To do this, log on to the “hopkins” wireless network and go through the normal printing option windows. You should still see the “Enter print name” window by which you can identify your print job in the library. Whenever you’re ready to print, Hopkins is ready to handle it.
http://www.library.jhu.edu/services/computing/laptopprinting.html