The ISU Photo Service will take its last picture and print its last print by 5 p.m. Nov.16 – and with that last click go the current jobs of five people.

Randy Moore, clerk in Photo Service, will be transferred to another department and said people are asking a lot of questions right now and they don’t have a lot of answers.

John McCarroll, director of University Relations, said the closing is not directly related to budget cuts, but it is a result of the slowing economy.

Photo Service currently is responsible for the photographs in university publications. They also provide, for a fee, passport and other portraits, film supplies and processing.

It is uncertain if and where these services will be transferred, McCarroll said.

“We are working very diligently to try to find new ways to provide some of these services, but I can’t guarantee that,” he said.

Two employees, Manager Michael Haynes and Media Specialist Bob Elbert, will stay on until the new year. Elbert will remain in University Relations. Haynes’ position is being eliminated. Moore and Alta Byg, a clerk, are being transferred to other university departments, and the creation of a position for Photo Specialist Grant Steinfeldt currently is under negotiation.

ISU Photo Service, which began 60 years ago, was consolidated in University Relations in 1966. Iowa State funded the entirety of Photo Service until 1993 when it began to charge fees for services in order to pay its operating costs, including salaries, McCarroll said.

In the first three months of this fiscal year, Photo Service was losing money, Haynes said. But, summer is always slow. McCarroll said the slowdown continued in September.

Haynes said for the past three years, all areas of photography work have increased, including location, studio and portrait photos. Services, like film supply and processing, are decreasing, he said.

“My basic thinking is this is a very quick decision that was made without the input of people who should have been involved in the process,” Haynes said. “It’s going to work out fine in the long run, only because people on campus were very upset about the potential loss of those services.”

McCarroll stands by what he called a very careful and complicated decision.

“I had to make the decision, because the deficit is increasing,” he said. “This is not something that just happened overnight.”