[Publib] Discontinuing Fax Service

[Michelle Mears]

Sorry to be bugging you again.  But this is a time-sensitive question and I need some input before my Board meeting next week.

If any libraries have discontinued your public fax service, can you share the reasons why or your motivation for doing so?  I am leaning very heavily towards stopping it, but I want to be sure I'm not going too far out on a limb. 

Seems as if libraries started offering public fax service as a way to justify getting and using a fax machine for their own library business, particularly when so much of ILL was done over fax.  Like, hey let's do this and we can recoup some of the costs while we're at it (no library I know makes a profit at faxing).  But now I just see it as a strain on my already overloaded staff and sort of unfair competition with local businesses who charge a lot more.  And faxers (like copiers) often come in just to do this one thing and are not utilizing any other part of the library.

Is scanning and e-mailing replacing the old-fashioned fax, or is it still a necessary business machine?

Michelle
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Michelle R. Mears, MSLIS, PhD
Library Director
Public Library of Enid & Garfield County
120 W. Maine Ave.
Enid, OK 73701-5606
580.234.6313 Phone
580.249.9280 Fax
620.506.8576 Mobile
http://www.enid.org/library/