Hard Copy Centre - Facilities & Services

 

Wilson Wong

The Hard Copy Centre (HCC) was founded in February 1994. At that time, colour output printing contributed to the majority of services provided, and hence its name was derived. However, with the rapid growth in technology, the HCC keeps on upgrading its technology and equipment. It now covers wide varieties of services, ranging from scanning, video/sound capturing to CD-ROM recording.

Why Do We Have the HCC?

Nowadays, with software, like CorelDraw, Adobe PageMaker and Microsoft PowerPoint, we can easily create high quality, attractive documents and presentation materials within our desktop computer. Yet, the quality and attractiveness of the document will be highly degraded if it is printed on a black and white laser printer. Using the existing desktop publishing software, we may encounter further difficulties if we try to make fancier presentation such as : including photos, 35mm slides, or video; exporting our presentation into 35mm slides/films; printing a poster as large as 3' x 9'; capturing text from a hard copy into our presentation; or trying to store a huge amount of data into a CD-ROM.

To alleviate these problems, the HCC was set up with the mission to provide various colour output and scanning solutions to staff and students of the University.

Scope of Services

The HCC offers a wide range of services, from printing and scanning services to provision of a Clip Art Library, as listed below :

1. Printing services, including
   • Colour Laser Printing Service
   • Colour Inkjet Printing Service
   • Poster Printing Service
   • Photo-Realistic Printing Service
   • High-speed Laser Printing Service
   
2. Scanning services, including
   • 35mm Film/Slide Scanning Service
   • Color Image Scanning Service
   • Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Service
   • Optical Mark Scanning Service
3. Other services, including
   • Color Laser Photocopying Service
   • Film Recording Service
   • Logo and Character Cutting Service
   • Video Image Capturing Service
   • Sound Capturing Service
   • CD-ROM Recording Service
   • Special Photographic Effect Service
4. Provision and maintenance of a Clip Art Library

   For details, users may refer to the Hard Copy Centre User's Guide which is available at the HCC counter or call us at extension 8257.

   
   

   Mode of Operation

   Initially, the HCC imposed charges only on the material cost of each service and it obtained full financial support from CSC. The operation mode has changed over time. It has long been a self-financing operation, meaning that its operation cost has to be fully recovered from services rendered. Now, as recommended by the CSC Management Committee (CSCMC), the HCC should charge prices at market level and compete with outside commercial services. This implies significant increase in prices and hence creates heavy financial burden for users, especially students. The final resolution is to provide substantial discount for students. Profits from the services, if any, will be transferred back to staff and students in the form of improvement of services.

   
   

   Challenges

   The market is constantly flooded with various desktop publishing tools. Most of them have some kind of incompatibility problems with our output devices. Extra efforts are needed to track and fix the problems.

   On the other hand, as colour output technology is rapidly growing, staff and students will undoubtedly continue to expect the HCC to provide higher quality services while at the same time, maintain "reasonable" service charges. Here comes the dilemma. In order to provide high quality services, the HCC has to upgrade its devices from time to time but this in turn increases its operation costs. Thus, it is difficult to strike a balance so that the charges and quality are acceptable to both the users and the HCC.

   
   

   Future Direction

   The HCC will keep on providing high quality output and scanning services and try its best to help staff and students to create high quality and attractive presentation materials. Recently, the HCC launched the Clip Art Library and the Special Photographic Effect Service, in an attempt to provide users with more attractive clip arts and photos for enhancing their presentation. The video image and sound capturing services were also introduced to help users to create multimedia presentations. The HCC will constantly review our users' need and its internal processes so that even under limited resources, a balance can be struck between what users need and what the HCC can provide.

   
   
   

   

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   Computing Services Centre City University of Hong Kong ccnetcom@cityu.edu.hk