The Central Duplicating Service has come a long way from the typing machines and paper master copies of its 1969 inception. The service has stayed in either the Business Service Building or the Business Service Annex but has transformed from off-set printing presses and mimeographs to a completely digital process with some of the most state-of-the-art technology available.
The office has produced almost 1 billion copies of exams, brochures and newsletters in its
40 years. The methods and machines used to make these copies may have changed over the years, but the department’s central mission has stayed the same: to provide high quality, economical duplicating and copy services for the university.
“There is not anything the campus may need in printing/duplicating that we can’t do for them,” said Dwayne Weaver, manager of the service, which refers to the copy-related and binding functions provided by the unit. “We give the best quality, pricing and service we can.”
Central Duplicating still makes copies and performs the same copy-related services it was originally established to do, but now, the machines are much faster and are digitized. The
department’s Xerox IGEN digital printer can print 110 copies a minute. All those copies add up, and the department has been averaging around 20 million copies a year for at least 20 years.
The unit’s biggest transformation was the transition to digital printing, according to Joe Morgan, a printing production supervisor in University Printing who managed Central Duplicating in much of the ’80s and ’90s. The shift to digital printing started in the ’90s and was completed in 2000.
The department started off using a system of off-set printing presses, similar to what University Printing uses now. To makes copies, plates or paper master copies had to be made. The system used inks, chemicals and rollers. Now the unit prints directly from digital files eliminating the need for mimeographs and stencils. Also the advent of dry toner makes the printing process a lot less messy, said Morgan, who recalled employees who used to get a lot more ink and toner on them.
The process also is faster, as plates no longer have to be burned. The copies are also of better quality than mimeographs and presses used to print.
Another benefit of digital printing is that it adds a layer of security. Files can simply be e-mailed over or uploaded to the department’s Web server. For professors that means tests can be sent over electronically, and a teaching assistant doesn’t have to walk the document over and risk losing the test. Cost estimates also can be made online.
The duplicating machines, which are the size of washing machines and can be as long as an office, haven’t gotten that much smaller over the years, but they have gotten faster and more efficient.
Technology has improved and most offices now have copiers and printers to make black-and-white copies. The demand for these copies has gone down, according to Weaver, but the service has been printing more color copies over the years.
Weaver said the unit’s prices for color copies are quite competitive and significantly less than outside vendors charge. Binding prices are similarly low.
Central Duplicating exclusively serves the university community, and as price per copy decreases as quantity increases, the service is especially cost-effective for large print jobs.
Central Duplicating currently provides copy services ranging from postcards and pamphlets to books to magazines. Documents can even include tabs and finished projects can be shrink-wrapped, and sent straight to Campus Mail Services, which Weaver also manages. In the bindery, copies can be saddle stitched, folded, scored or bound in a number of different styles including spiral binding, coil binding, tape binding and perfect binding. Central Duplicating also offers free pick up and delivery.
Central Duplicating can be contacted by phone at (706) 542-4440, the same phone number assigned to them in 1969.