The Publishing & Copy Centre: From 1988 to Now

The Publishing & Copy Centre (P&CC) is a 100% student-run service operated by the AMS and a staff composed of diverse, keen and hardworking undergraduate students; 35 Customer Service Representatives and 4 Managers. Students were seeking a low cost alternative to publishing, printing, binding and duplicating since nothing of the kind existed on campus. So, after a motion was put forward by a student to the AMS Board of Directors, the P&CC opened in 1988.

Initially it housed a typesetting service for students to use for their resumes, pamphlets, reports, theses and advertising copy. Renovations at a cost of $15 000 were made to the Queen’s Journal office to house the P&CC. The service was also to allow students to have small posters designed and printed, advertisements and notices typeset and material produced on laser printers with desktop publishing software.  The immediate advantages to the service were extended hours (open seven days a week); an opportunity for students to learn about publishing; as well as prices being well over half what you would pay elsewhere at the time.

By the year 2001 they were making over 2.75 million copies per year! Then, in the 2007-2008 school year the physical layout within the store underwent renovations, spiral binding capacity was further developed and the number of courses involved in courseware production was significantly increased. In 2011-2012 strategic investments allowed the P&CC to overhaul the way it was doing business cards and cutting, reducing poster prices in half which resulted in a 400% increase in the number of wide-format posters sold.

Today, The P&CC offers a wide variety of printing and finishing services including black and white and colour printing/copying; scanning; faxing; business cards; booklets; brochures; rave cards; binding; photo printing and poster printing.