What struck me most about today’s trip to the printing center was the amount of effort involved in the printing process itself. The inking of the machine seemed to be very tedious, as much time had to be spent reapplying the ink to the machine to ensure that the prints remained crisp. Then, it took additional time to set the paper and actually set the mechanism in motion to print a single sheet. Based on this, it is easy to see how printing an entire book took a great deal of time and effort. What’s more, the machine we were viewing had the added benefit of an electronic inking process. It must have been severely annoying to keep earlier models of these machines well-inked. Today’s class gave me a true appreciation of how far the printing process has come along. Granted, there are some complaints that the shift to mass production has resulted in a decrease in overall book quality. However, witnessing how long it took to print a single page using earlier printing methods has shown that the decrease in book durability with modern printing is well worth it when considering how much time is saved in the whole printing process.