For several years, cashless payments have been in the works at Sonoma State Library, and the library has always wanted to give students an easier way to pay for their printing necessities. The library is introducing some brand-new upgrades, starting with finally introducing Wolfbucks as a new form of payment to replace cash-only machines. 

Wolfbucks only work with student IDs, and are used for dining on campus or buying school supplies in the student store. It made a lot of sense to offer it as an option when it comes to printing, because there now isn’t the need to carry loose change. 

Hilary Smith, a research and user services librarian at Sonoma State disclosed that the main benefit for students is that they don’t have to remember to carry coins on their person at all times. Especially at a time like this, people tend to avoid giving and taking cash due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, Smith spoke about how many services and purchases are processed using some kind of form of cashless or touch-free payment, and how the library finally made a choice to adapt to these innovations as well. 

Strictly using coin machines was detrimental to library staff as well, because they were constantly having to fix the finicky machines or jams in the coin slots. Students are often left waiting for their print job to finish, and as a result aren’t happy with this experience. Through printing with Wolfbucks, this can be avoided. 

Wolfbucks printing is up and running available for students to use today. On the first floor of the library, there are both black and white and color print stations. The second floor contains two black and white print stations. 

When students are ready to print, they can log onto any of the library computers, find what they want to print on Canvas or Google Docs, for example, and send it to the print stations. The printer stations have a computer terminal and card swipe. Students will swipe their ID to call up their print job(s) and it will display the available Wolfbucks to use. The library staff hopes to add more features in the future, which include the ability to print from a mobile device, and more. 

Currently, the library is only accepting Wolfbucks as a form of payment. There isn’t an option or ability to pay with a different method of payment. If students ever run out of money they can add more to their Wolfbucks account. Students can find more information about it on the Wolfbucks website under “How to Add Funds.” 

Even though most of the printers are set up for Wolfbucks Printing, the coin machine is still an option and available for students with the first floor printers. Anyone who does not have access to Wolfbucks can pay for printing with cash on the first floor. 

Along with the addition of Wolfbucks printing, the library has some other new technology to offer. They have recently added four new flatbed scanners where students can upload scans directly to their Google Drive or attach it to their Gmail. If students can’t make it to the library during the hours they are open, they have also installed smart lockers outside the first floor entrance as pickup locations where students can request items to be placed in the lockers for pickup anytime.

The library has been updating their equipment to adapt to the advances of technology to make it easier for students. Wolfbucks Printing is now available for students to use so that they don’t have to worry about carrying loose change, and are instead able to pay using their student ID.