Kansas University will close its printing services division this spring, resulting in the elimination of 20 positions, officials announced this afternoon.

Marilu Goodyear, vice provost for information services, said dwindling workload — spurred by increased use of the Internet and e-mail — made it inefficient to continue the division.

“It’s not cost-effective to keep people around,” she said.

Campus departments paid $2.5 million to completing printing projects at the self-sustaining operation last year, Goodyear said. KU officials did not have an estimate for how much money would be saved with the division’s elimination, since the jobs that remain will be outsourced to outside printing operations.

Goodyear said KU would attempt to find other job openings for the 20 employees affected.

This is the largest set of layoffs at KU since September 2002, when the university laid off 13 employees and cut 38 additional vacant positions in response to state budget cuts.