Carolina Copy Faces Competition
by Nora Warren

You've probably never thought about the cost of copying on campus. An old fashioned black-and-white, eight-and-a-half by eleven-inch copy--it's just a few pennies, right?
You swipe your One Card, hit the start button, and snatch up your copy. It’s that easy, but just how much does it cost every time you push that little green button?
At Kinko's, folks put down just 8 cents a copy. But on campus, you'll pay almost twice that amount.

The Carolina Copy Service’s prices rise when the number of students using the service drops.

" Our volume has dropped about 25 percent a year," Alvin Garner, manager of Carolina Copy Service, said.

In August the cost per copy went from ten cents to 14 cents, prompting librarians to consider dropping Carolina Copy Service.

"We've heard from others that have done this,” said University librarian Diane Strauss. “It has been equally problematic."

But if students can go to places like Kinko’s, it's just a matter of competition, right?

Not if they want something from the reference desk in Davis Library. You can't leave the building with restricted items. So if you want to take copies home, you'll have to pay whatever Carolina Copy Service charges.

To Strauss, the cost of replacing a lost book simply outweighs the need to keep copy costs down.

" We have, for example, some business directories that retail for $15,000 or more," she said.

Garner said the higher prices don’t result in a profit.
"It doesn't do us any good to make any extra money because we are controlled by the university budget," Garner said.

But librarians are still looking for other alternatives.

" I can't name a library that has a really great photocopying service,” said Strauss. “And if we knew of one, we would copy it slavishly."

Copying another library's copy service could mean less costly prices for you. If you think the cost of making a copy is too high on campus, Strauss said you can appeal to the student advisory board. The board meets on April 1.