[ILL-L] United States Postal Service Contacts

Tue Aug 7 12:54:09 EDT 2007

Good Heavens!  Just when one process becomes easier, another becomes
harder!  But thanks for the info.  We have had horrible problems with
not receiving books and books taking way longer than they need to when
shipping through USPS.  One staff member spent a lot of time trying to
find someone to 'complain' to and had absolutely no luck.  The info
below is a great help. I'll pass it on.

Carol A. Vaeth 
ILL Coordinator - BAL       It doesn't get better
Langsdale Library                  or worse; 
University of Baltimore     it just gets different.
1420 Maryland Ave
Baltimore MD 21201-5706
cvaeth at ubalt.edu
(410) 837-4283
fax (410) 837-4330
ariel 198.202.3.140

-----Original Message-----
From: ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:ill-l-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Bierma, Lynn
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:19 PM
To: ill-l at webjunction.org
Subject: [ILL-L] United States Postal Service Contacts

Ever been frustrated with "lost" books and the ever so helpful notice
from USPS that "an empty wrapper with your address was found in the
mail..."?   

After dutifully filling out the "Parcel Search Request" and mailing it
to "Mail Recovery Center", I soon realized our library would never see
our lost books again.  Luckily, the rash of lost books has stopped after
some investigation of packaging down in our shipping dept...(more taping
and banning the use of Jiffy Bags).

Has anyone been able to contact a live person at the mail recovery
center(s)?  If anyone has this information, please reply!  I'm
particularly interested in talking wth anyone at the Mail Recover Center
in St. Paul, Minnesota.  To any library in St. Paul....have you been
there?  Is it a huge warehouse with books stacked to the ceiling?  Do
they have an annual book sale? :)   According to USPS all they need is
the name of our library in the book, and if no address, they'll look us
up for a web site..which we have.  I guess that's not really enough,
because we've not been able to recover our books.

Anyway...back to the topic of this email:

USPS has "Consumer Affairs Associates" assigned to regions throughout
the United States.  While I thought I could obtain a listing of the
associates and their contact information for the regions and post them
to the listserv, there are so many that USPS asks that you send your zip
code to them and they'll let you know how to contact the associate.

Send an email to Support at USPS [uspshelpdesk at spemail.esecurecare.net]
with your zip code and your request for the contact information of the
Consumer Affairs Associate for your region.  I'm hoping mine will be
able to help me contact the Mail Recovery Center in St. Paul.

In the same email message, you can also ask for the "Mailpiece Design
Analyst" for your region.  I've sent samples of our packaging, and was
told it was all of very good quality.  However, I've found that the
Jiffy Bags we used easily burst open; they are made out of a heavy
cardboard-like material.  We found that out by mistake when I happened
to be in shipping and a medium-sized, but lightweight, book inside a
"quality" Jiffy Bag was dropped on the floor...hence the banning of
Jiffy Bags.

If you're struggling with cost and the new UPS rules on size, I also
found out that if I sent "final mailing samples" (packaging with books
inside them) to my design analyst, she'd tell us if the packaging would
be categorized as large envelopes or flats.  Or, if the packaging was
too uneven or too thick/rigid, whether that would move them into parcel
category for 1st Class Mail or Not Flat-Machinable category for Standard
Mail.  I guess that relates to Library Rate too.

Lynn Bierma
Interlibrary Loan Operations Coordinator
Room 219
IL State Library
300 S. 2nd Street
Springfield, IL, 62701
lbierma at ilsos.net
PHONE: 217-558-1928
FAX: 217-782-4446

Jesse White, Secretary of State and State Librarian

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4:53 PM

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