From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Feb. 8, 1990:

Teachers at West Junior High School were being encouraged by administrators to use ditto machines rather than photocopiers. West Principal Mick Lowe explained to the Journal-World today that the district’s current lease agreement with Century Office Products was drawing to an end, and the school was approaching the number of copies it could make without having to pay for them from its own instructional funds. According to Lowe, the school had to pay nine-tenths of a cent for every copy over the limit, which was a low rate compared to others in town, “but pretty soon it adds up to real money,” Lowe said. After having run out of its agreed-upon number of copies the previous year, the school had ended up using about $2,000 of its own funds. In an effort to avoid that situation this year, Lowe said the school had posted a chart indicating the number of copies already made and the number of copies left. Lowe had also unplugged the one copy machine that had reached its limit, leaving the school with only one machine. The substitution of the old ditto machines had helped the situation, Lowe said, “but dittos aren’t really satisfactory because the copies aren’t as clear.” Teachers were hoping to be able to return to the more modern machines as soon as the following week, when the district would enter into a new leasing contract with the lowest bidder.