PRINTING BUILDING

The function of the building is, in part, well defined in the project description presented to the Board on Jan. 13-14, 1966, when the project was approved:

For more than thirty-five years mimeographing, printing, and related services have been carried on at Iowa State University by what is referred to as the Printing Department. This department is not a commercial printing plant, but instead provides a variety of office-type duplicating and mailing services. Its equipment includes electric typewriters, mimeographs, small offset presses, an ozalid machine, and machines for assembling, addressing and stuffing mailing pieces. It sets no type. All of the larger long-run and more complicated printing jobs are sent off campus to commercial shops. The Printing Department is operated primarily for the internal or departmental convenience of the University and is not a commercial-type printing plant. Examples of its work are examination questions, laboratory manuals, pamphlets for the Extension Service, printed programs, circular letters, the Faculty Newsletter, and a great variety of leaflets, forms and announcements from various campus departments. It mails catalogues and other materials to prospective students, publications to alumni and parents, and special printed pieces to specialized lists maintained by the Alumni Office, the Extension Services and others. The purpose of the centralized service is to avoid duplication of equipment and personnel in the many departments of the university and to produce quickly and economically the day-to-day printing needs of the University. This service is a self-supporting activity, and income to meet its operating and capital costs is derived from intramural charges to the departments which use the service.

During development of the drawings for the building the decision was reached to enlarge its scope to provide space for the Information Service storage and mailing office for bulletins and brochures.¹

Construction contracts were awarded in June 1967 and the building was put into operation in May 1968.