Answers to Go

Q.Can people print from library computers? What are my options?

A. This is possibly the most common question we get at the library, and the answer is YES.

The library has several options for printing. The most common printing is completed from our public computers and the library has several “banks” of computers for various needs with printing options on all of them. The “quick” computers are a bank of computers by the information (reference) desk where a librarian is always available to help with questions on printing (or anything else). Customers may use this bank of computers for up to one hour and can print in color (40 cents per page) or black and white (10 cents per page).

For more than one hour of time, we ask that customers use the bank of computers behind the information desk, the “Adult” bank. These computers can be used for multiple hours and a library card number and PIN are all that is needed for these. If someone does not have a library card, we certainly encourage them to get one. Library cards are free to anyone in Hays County or with a San Marcos postal address. In addition, any teacher with San Marcos Consolidated School District or any City of San Marcos employee can get a library card for free. All that is needed is a photo ID (so we can identify the applicant) and proof of address and employment if they are a teacher or city worker.

Printing can also be done remotely from a smartphone or a laptop. People can even send in their print jobs from home and print them out when they arrive at the library because print jobs stay in the print queue for up to two hours after sending them in. To accomplish printing from a smart phone, you just email your document to smpl-mainbw@ printspots.com for black and white print outs or smpl-main-color@ printspots.com for color print outs.

You may also print from a laptop, remotely. To do this, go to www. printeron.net/smpl/ main and follow the simple instructions from there.

A tip when printing at the library or any place that has public computers available. Be careful before you hit the final “print” button. Make sure the number of copies you want is entered, the number of pages in your print job is correct, as well as choosing black and white or color. This is important because in many printing systems (including ours) the number of copies, the number of pages in a document and the color cannot be adjusted once they have been sent in.

One final note — the library now has a print kiosk that allows patrons to pay for prints with a credit card, but the minimum purchase is $1, so if your print job is less than 10 pages, please bring change.

Suzanne Sanders is the columnist for the library. She is the Community Services Manager for the San Marcos Public Library and came from the Austin Public Library in 2015 after having served there as a librarian for over 20 years. She gratefully accepts your questions for this column.