PrinterOn was used by a number of libraries, including here.
That product is basically dead now though after being through multiple acquisitions.
A good alternative is ePRINTit. We just started using it here and it's working great.
It does work similar to PrinterOn, except it's simplified and they have a nice mobile app.
And bonus - it's cheaper than PrinterOn.
Details: https://eprintit.com/
See the link in my signature to see how it works through the web too.
Thanks,
Tim DeYoung | Head of Information Technology
16250 Wausau Avenue | South Holland, IL 60473
Direct: (708) 527-3109 | Fax: (708) 331-6557
www.shlibrary.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Andrew Ward
Sent: Thursday, December 3, 2020 3:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Handling print jobs via email
Hi all,
I'm hoping I can prod the collective wisdom about a perennial problem here at our library: What to do when a patron comes in with something on their phone to be printed, but for whatever reason they cannot use a computer to retrieve it (for instance in the case where they do not remember their
password.)
Often, due to frustrations on the part of either the patron or front-line staff, the solution ends up being to email the reference account with an attachment that the librarian opens and prints. This obviously carries significant security and privacy risks. It is, however, absolutely seamless and generally understood by most everyone.
So I am wondering if people have thoughts about how to approach the problem and possible avenues to explore. Some ideas I've kicked around with our IT consultant are: somehow scripting CUPS to control access to print jobs or using an online file uploader such as uppy.io to send stuff to a cloud provider that staff can print directly from without downloading files and executing them locally. I would prefer open-source solutions. I am not a developer, though I consider myself something of a professionalized script kiddie. I can implement well-documented methods with some trial and error.
Wild, hacked-together, piecemeal ideas welcome!
My absolute pie-in-the-sky dream would be to have a dedicated machine for quick one-off print jobs like this. The patron would email a specific address and go over to the machine. They would enter their identifier (library card number, name, whatever pseudonym they might choose) and the system would only show the emails belonging to them. From there, they could print the emails/attachments as they normally would. The computer would be managed like any other public access machine--separated into a public subnet and have session management software installed. This seems at least theoretically doable with Google's (who we use) own APIs/scripting, but I'm not going to build a whole email client just for my particular use case.
I know that there are vendor solutions such as PrinterOn, and while I am willing to consider them, I have so far been unimpressed. At my previous work, I used PrinterOn but I found it to be unintuitive and dated-looking.
If I am going to justify the cost for an ongoing subscription, I would like the product to meet a level of UX comparable to modern commercial services.
However, It is more than possible that I haven't seen everything out there.
Thanks for any help you can provide,
Andrew
--
Andrew Ward (he/him/his)
Digital Services Librarian
Troy Public Library
100 Second Street
Troy, New York 12180
(518) 274-7071
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