Presstek Inc.

When the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) asked staff and students to rate the service they were getting from university departments in 2008, the results were enlightening. Both faculty and students complained about the level of service being offered in all business services and financial departments. That included UNMC's 21-employee Printing Services department.

Listing the Presstek 52DI on Schedule 70 makes it easier for Federal agencies to acquire the product. Contract Number GS-35F-0050W covers the 52DI and core accessories, including service, training, freight and basic rigging.

On November 4, the fourth annual Digital Printing in Government & Higher Education Forum took place in Washington, D.C.

Take a quick tour of the PRINT 09 show floor with IPG Editor Bob Neubauer.

FOR 10 YEARS, copying services at Villanova University School of Law were provided by Xerox under a facilities management contract. There were, however, some strings attached. The university had to supply the toner. And students had to bring their own paper.

Digital offset printing solutions provider Presstek Inc. said that the International Trade Commission (ITC) has determined that VIM Technologies has violated U.S. Federal law by importing into the United States printing plates that infringe upon patents owned by Presstek.

Like bowls of porridge, rocking chairs and ursine beds, various CTP systems may or may not fit the needs and suit the taste of a particular prospective user. Fortunately, Gordon Rivera found a platemaker that was just right for Allan Hancock College’s in-plant.

CHEMISTRY DEFINITELY has its place: in science fairs, laboratories and love. However, more and more in-plants are displacing chemistry in favor of greener, cleaner workflows. Platemaking is one of the areas getting the enviro-overhaul. Here, five in-plants recount their transitions to chemistry-free computer-to-plate (CTP). And despite our best efforts to document the bad along with the good, these in-plants claim to have had very few reservations—and even fewer regrets.

Tapped to oversee an in-plant located in a college football stadium (really), Tom Tozier needed a new game plan. “When I came here [in January 2008], not only was the shop not CTP, we were farming out to a film setter. We actually bought our film from a print shop in town,” admits Tozier, director of Imaging Services at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

TO BE FAIR, the sorry state of the economy made it almost impossible for PRINT 09 to be a rousing success. Show floor traffic was so slow on the opening day (Friday), it was speculated that someone forgot to flip the sign in the front window at McCormick Place from "closed" to "open for business." And one had to question the logic of conducting a long, weekend-wraparound show on the first week of pro football season, when no one (it was presumed) would be coming to Chicago, let alone spending.