March 29, 2012

Comment:

My name is ***** and I am a student here at the University. I am emailing you because of a problem that I have encountered during the majority of my visits to the 24 hr lab this semester.

First off let me start by saying that the staff is fantastic and friendly ALWAYS, but my grievance lies in the fact there is almost never a stapler to use in this lab. I understand that with the amount of traffic which comes thru the lab any given week that office supplies such as a stapler must break down quite frequently, however I have voiced my concern with the lab staff several times with no permanent resolution ever coming to be.

I figured you would be the person to escalate this problem to and hope that moving forward there will be a working stapler or two in the 24 hour lab. I am sure you are aware that each student is required to pay for library fees and by doing so I, as well as many others, would like to staple our papers and assignments at all times.

Hopefully this email serves as a friendly reminder that with as much printing that takes place in this 24 hour lab, a working stapler is not only a necessity, but something I and many others pay to have available to us at ALL times.

I look forward to your reply regarding this matter.

Response:

Thank you for recognizing the efforts of my staff I will insure that they are recognized for providing positive service. Also, I appreciate you taking the time to relay your perception of what the Lab provides to the UNT student body in the way of staplers. I am thankful that you have provided me the opportunity to address a number of misunderstandings.

The 24hr Lab in Willis is part of the General Access Lab System and is not funded by the Library Use Fee. The General Access Lab System was designed to be good stewards of the funds received from all UNT students who pay for access to the General Access Computer Lab facilities, and the policies insure equitable distribution of the resources. The general access computer lab fees (a small portion of the Technology Use Fee) go to the support and functionally of the computing equipment and personnel of ALL 14 UNT General Access Computer Labs. Students may print in any and all of the General Access Computer Labs throughout the University within University lab printing policies. Students pay $3.50 per credit hour for the General Access Lab System. This means that if you are enrolled for 12 hours, a full-time student, you pay through your fees, a total of $42 for all 14 General Access Computer Labs. This money is divided and distributed among all the computing facilities within the General Access Lab System. Then the funds are used to cover ALL services provided in the labs, this includes the hardware, software, software patrons have access too, assistance from staff, the facilities and furniture, hours of operation, printing and so on. As a computing facilities, there is no requirement to provide patrons with any type of binding material. As a courtesy, we have opted to try to provide 2 regular staplers, one heavy duty stapler, a hole punch, and 2000 paperclips a month for the convenience of our patrons. However, due to the abuse received from a number of patrons and the sheer volume of usage the stapler does break occasionally prior to the two weeks for which it was intended to last. Our responsibility is to provide high quality hardware, personnel, and computing software to support the UNT educational goals of our patrons. As providing staplers, fall outside of our core mission we can only justify committing a certain portion of our budget to staplers, therefore we purchase within our budget constraints, staplers to maximize the benefit to our patrons. In order to be the best stewards of our budget, it has been determined that we can not afford to replace the stapler every time one breaks, however we can reasonably manage the two staplers a month.

Your statements have been heard, however it is my job and obligation to the Lab System and the University to evaluate the overall best use of the facility and the fiscal resources for the optimal benefit to the entire UNT community.