Vista - Cannot Connect to Printer Network at School

I work at a University and I use the wireless internet on my laptop with runs 32bit Vista. The internet is provided by the university but the printers in my department are maintained by our department IT guys. They claim that their system does not support Vista - except sometimes. It seems kind of mystical to them.

I can log onto our printer server but I can't install any of the individual printers.
I get errors 0x0000052e, 0x0000057, and 0x000006d1 depending on which printer I try to install. I can see all of the print queues and the properties of all of the printers - why can't I install them? Is there some driver that I need to install?

I'm afraid you'll have to walk me through any explanation you give since I'm not very good with this type of thing.

Thanks!