Like others, I'm a big fan of Brother printers (laser or inkjet) at home.* BUT, as you guessed at the end of your email,  it's really not fair to expect to get more than 3 years of continuous use out of a consumer-grade printer. That said, I think the price difference between buying a new consumer-grade printer every 3 years and the upkeep costs of a commercial-grade printer is probably negligible. Plus, it's often much easier to clear paper jams from home printers!

--Rachel
* Personal opinion, not an official endorsement.

-----Original Message-----
Date:    Wed, 22 Feb 2017 10:34:51 -0500
From:    Julie Swierczek <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: desktop printer for label sheets

Oh Collective Wisdom!

We use sheets of archival labels to label our document boxes in the
archives.  I think we buy them from one of the major library suppliers
(Gaylord, etc.)  although I can't say which for certain.

The person who prints the most labels uses a desktop printer for this
purpose.  After three years of printing mostly labels, the printer will not
feed the sheets into the printer any longer.  I believe they tried
replacing a roller or some such part - I know, I'm being real sketchy on
details here, sorry - and it did not improve.  You can't even get it to
work if you manually feed the label sheet into the printer to help it get
started.

So, if you were going to buy a relatively-inexpensive - say under $300 -
printer for this purpose, knowing you were going to be feeding labels into
it all the time, what would you recommend?

And, if you think it is ridiculous to expect a desktop printer to handle
labels for years at that price, go ahead and say so and recommend whatever
more expensive product you think is a good idea. We might just have
unrealistic expectations for a desktop printer in that price range.

Thanks much.

Julie

Julie C. Swierczek
Librarian for Primary Resources and Metadata Services
Swarthmore College Peace Collection and Friends Historical Library
[log in to unmask]
http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace
http://www.swarthmore.edu/friends-historical-library
she/her/hers





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