The University has lowered the prices for the public printers, according to an email Vice Provost, Chief Information Officer and University Librarian John Unsworth sent to the Brandeis community on Wednesday. The pricing change was made to bring the University’s pricing “in line” with neighboring universities’ policies, the email stated.

According to the email sent to the community, the new printing prices reflect a decrease of between 25 and 45 percent, depending on the number of pages and ink type.

While the price for printing a one-sided, black-and-white page has not changed from the original 10-cent charge, the price for printing a double-sided black-and-white sheet has gone down by 5 cents to reflect paper conservation. Additionally, the prices for printing a single-sided color page and a double-sided color page have gone down by 20 cents and 45 cents, respectively.

In a phone interview with the Justice, Unsworth noted that the Library Advisory committee calculated a possible deficit of $20,000 between profits from the old pricing system and the new one. “It’s hard to say [what the actual margin will be], because the information we had to calculate that on uses the previous year’s prices, and of course, when you change the prices, people might change their habits,” he said, adding that any profit loss will be covered by the University’s Procurement and Business Services department.

According to the original email, the price change is the result of a proposal Noam Cohen ’16 made to the Library Advisory Committee in the spring semester. Over the summer, Cohen “compared Brandeis' former printing prices to those at neighboring peer institutions, and made a compelling case for bringing our pricing in line with them. With the support from the offices of Procurement Services and Students and Enrollment, Brandeis was able to make this change possible,” the email read.

In an email to the Justice, Cohen stated that this proposal was something he has wanted to do for a while. “I have long felt that the printing prices at Brandeis have been high, and about a year ago, I decided to do some research to see if it was really true,” he said. “I looked at the printing prices at other universities in the area, and they all were less expensive than Brandeis’. Once I established that, it seemed reasonable to try to lower our prices.”

Cohen wrote that he joined the Library Advisory Committee shortly after his initial research, and, once he discussed his concerns with Unsworth, decided to make a proposal at the Library and Technology Services leadership meeting, during which he presented his findings and suggested the price decrease. Some of the peer institutions to which the University’s printing prices were compared included Tufts University, Clark University, Boston College and Northeastern University, Unsworth said in the phone call.

Unsworth also noted in the phone call that Cohen’s proposal and involvement in the new pricing system are especially significant, as “it’s a nice example of the fact that student participation in these University committee appointments can make a difference, and that without it, we don’t necessarily know what’s important to students.”

“The old printing structure didn’t provide any incentive for conserving resources, so printing double-sided was twice the cost of printing single-sided, and so the hope there was that that would provide an incentive for people to make double-sided printing their normal mode and as that happens, we’ll save a whole bunch of paper,” Unsworth added.

According to the email, the new prices extend to all public printing areas, including the Goldfarb Library InfoCommons, the Goldfarb Classroom, the Farber Classroom, the Shapiro Campus Center, the Heller Computer Lab and the International Business School Commons.