Drake printing services have seen recent changes in ownership that may lead to paper and ink shortages in the near future.
Drake printing was run through Xerox until 2017, when administrators decided to take a second look at Drake’s printing system and vendor. Then, Drake used a local printing service, which Xerox later bought out. With the current Xerox contract ending in 2027, Keren Fiorenza, Drake’s deputy chief information technology officer, expects that Drake will not renew its contract with Xerox.
“The Xerox service had degraded while costs had gone up,” Fioenza said. “The group responsible for this assessment developed and sent out a Request for Proposals to multiple print vendors.”
While the group was looking into other vendors in 2017, they decided that they wanted to stick with a local company to be Drake’s next print vendor. They landed on Laser Resources Inc., a Des Moines-based printing company and vendor.
“Laser Resources Inc. was awarded the contract, and we had a good partnership with them for the full five years of the contract,” Fiorenza said.
The partnership with LRI was going very well, which led to the company signing another five-year contract with Drake in 2022. However, shortly after the renewal was signed, the University was informed that Xerox had bought out LRI. The new Xerox contract worked well early on, but recently, there have been more challenges working with Xerox.
“We have started experiencing delays with administrator support and delivery of print supplies,” Fiorenza said. “We continue to push Xerox to address these issues.”
Addressing those challenges with Xerox hasn’t been easy.
“Xerox is hard to get in touch with,” Jack Harrington, the facilities and technology senator said. “They’re a big corporation, so there’s not much of a personable relationship there.”
The contract ends in 2027. Despite there only being two years left in the contract, Harrington still has concerns about the future of Drake printing services. With the issues Drake printing had with Xerox in the first partnership, Harrington is concerned that those old issues will resurface again.
“The worry is that restocking paper, ink and toner may be a lot tougher,” Harrington said. “Hopefully, this time the partnership will go much smoother, but it should be expected for students, staff and faculty that printing may be a little rocky.”
Jessica Danz, a sophomore clinical and medical health sciences major, could see these delays in restocking printing materials impacting sciences students.
“Most of the things I print are lab reports,” Danz said. “While most of my assignments are digital, I know many science students who complain about running out of printing dollars. Shortages on printing materials will hurt those students even more.”
Fiorenza did not share those same concerns and is hopeful that the Xerox partnership will have a minimal impact on student printing.
“When the current contract is up for renewal, I anticipate we will go through a full [Request for Proposals] process again,” Fiorenza said. “It is important for us to have a local partner that we can depend on to keep printers and services running 24/7.”
