[Libs-Or] Printing and privacy

[PETERSON Jenny]

We're looking for suggestions on the following situation:

All of our internet/word processing stations print to one printer behind the
circulation desk, so that patrons pay for their printing at the time they
pick
it up.

This works fine, except that it's sometimes awkward from a patron-privacy
standpoint in that we either have to ask them the subject matter of what
they
printed so that we can retrieve it, or alternatively hand them some of the
items recently printed out so that they can retrieve their own.  Either way
it
doesn't feel quite right.

To my knowledge, we haven't had any *patron* complaints about this issue,
but
we're starting to think that there must be a better way.

Has any library out there figured out a more privacy-conscious way to
identify
and retrieve patron printing, where all workstations print to one central
printer? I know that there is software out there that will anonymously
identify print jobs by job number, but in these times of tight budgets, we
don't have much (if any) money to spend on that.

Please reply to me offline if you have any great ideas.  Thanks so much!



Jenny Peterson, Adult Svcs. Mngr.
Springfield Public Library
225 5th St. / Springfield OR 97477
541-726-2234
jgpeterson at ci.springfield.or.us