Things I Don't Understand

Why librarians kill more trees than most other professionals.

In library school, I have printed off more sheets of paper than I care to admit, in the thousands in just over three semesters. In fact, our school allows MLS and MIS (that would be Master of Library Science and Master of Information Science) students a larger printing quota than regular graduate students.

I remember thinking, last year when I worked in a small academic library, that the librarians printed an inordinate amount of things that could be easily noted on a piece of paper or documented in a Word document for later consumption and digestion via the computer monitor. But things were always printed.

Here at school, the trend continues. My total print quota per semester is 2500 sheets. They say most students don't even get close, but think about the number of trees that encompasses.