Reprographics move frustrates many

Since Wharton Reprographics has started selling non-Wharton coursepacks at its 3535 Market Street location this year, it has solved the space crunch it faced at its Steinberg-Dietrich Hall facility. But the move has left many professors and students frustrated and upset -- with claims that coursepack production has been slower than usual and that they were uninformed of the location change -- and have even led at least one professor to call the situation an "outrage." The new location is at the corner of 36th and Market streets, adjacent to a PNC Bank branch on the building's ground floor. South Asian Regional Studies Professor Rosene Rocher said she was met with frustrated students who could not obtain a coursepack for her class for days because they were unavailable at the Steinberg-Dietrich branch. Once students were informed of the location change, Rocher said, they did not even know where to go. "I teach freshman English so I want to settle them into good habits, but they didn't know where to go," Rocher said. "The freshmen were upset and it's already difficult for them to find places around campus." History Professor Jeffrey Fear, who teaches a class composed mainly of freshman, said he was also concerned about his students becoming frazzled by the announcement of the location switch. "It essentially confused them," he said. "I wouldn't know where [the new facility] was either if I had to go pick up a coursepack." And students said they have found themselves waiting in long lines in Steinberg-Dietrich only to be told that they were in the wrong place. When College sophomore Christine Nangle went to Steinberg-Dietrich for her coursepack, she noticed on the roster that some bulkpacks were listed as having Market Street stock locations, but she thought "that's where they got [the coursepacks] from, not that they were actually [being sold] there." "It was a little bit frustrating because they didn't make it clear initially," she added. "It just seemed kind of absurd." But Wharton Reprographics has actively informed professors and students of the change, according to Reprographics Director Peter Shoudy. "We certainly notified the Wharton faculty and anybody who had been by in the last four or five months," he said. Shoudy stressed that there were many clear indications of the change, including the listings on the course roster in Steinberg-Dietrich. "It lists the Market Street location and if [students] read the signs on the wall where they were standing in line [they would have known where to go]," Shoudy said. Despite these notices, students still had a hard time obtaining their coursepacks. College senior Lakshmi Natarajan heard from a friend about the change but she said she still felt inconvenienced. "They sent us there and the bulkpack wasn't even done," Natarajan said. Wharton Reprographics' Market Street location has been open since the summer and is currently the company's main printing facility. It will likely be the permanent outlet for non-Wharton coursepacks, Shoudy said. "We had a space problem and the decision was logistical," he added. "It makes the most logical sense to sell non-Wharton coursepacks [elsewhere]."

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