Finals-week power outage thwarts printing systems

(10: 44) A power outage that derailed internet service all over campus is hampering students’ efforts to print final papers.

Smart Stop, an advising center and free printing station on campus, was not operational during the outage, according to employee Matthew Jones. It comes at an inconvenient time --he said finals week thus far has been “extremely busy.”

“At 8 a.m., students were already lining up to print things,” he said of his Monday shift. In his estimation, finals week is the busiest week of the year.

The outage was affecting students who don’t have personal printers and wanted to use some of their 50 free printouts from the center. But the outage – which downed internet service all over campus – also shut down efforts for paid printing in the library.

The pay-per-print Diginet system has been down for the past few days, and the library has compensated by doing all printing for free at the reference desk.

A reference desk employee said some students are trying to type their term papers on library computers, but students are currently unable to access and print from their e-mail.